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Evolution of this page
===The idea for this wiki evolved from the gathering of Friends school teachers at FEEN 08 at Carolina Friends School. The question arose: How can we best capitalize on the groundswell of interest in being green and garner support to further interest in the field of environmental education? We realized that our schools were in different stages of development with regard to environmental clubs, greenhouses, roof gardens, and sustainability. Yet as we heard the exciting ideas and projects underway that schools shard, it occurred to us that it would be helpful to have an online document of environmental stories of Quaker schools, sharing what we are doing with stewardship and the environment. By pooling our efforts (including showing pictures of our work) and generating ideas that could be shared, we hope to inspire others and learn practical techniques ourselves. Please feel free to change and add information.===

Philosophy and Goals
===FEEN educators discussed what we were doing currently and strove to envision the future with regard to the role of environmental education. Collectively we can do a lot more than individually. We recognize that we often have more opportunities to plan and carry out new ideas in a Friends school environment, and therefore have a responsibility to share what works with others. By creating the best, we continue as role models for other educational communities.===

Environmental Education and Curriculum
===Growing food and learning about the earth in a positive way is essential. By connecting students to composting and understanding the cycle between earth and food, they learn to value the cycle of life. Let us teach our students the tools that empower them to believe that they can solve some of these global problems. They will be our future.===

A key component is to put in place the expectation of an environmental curriculum and get it on par with math, history, and expect it be addressed; then it will be.
===To get us to change our educational curriculum is to ask ourselves what our education is for. What set of skills will best serve our kids in twenty plus years? Learning building and problem-solving skills will continue to be important.=== ===The next big question becomes, how do you deal with college and college prep and balance those needs with an innovative curriculum? It can be tricky navigating that bridge from the traditional as high schools are almost locked into college prep. Middle schools in general tend to have more flexibility about their curriculum. Do middle schools have class requirements in environmental studies?===

===Every child who goes to Sidwell Friends goes through an environmental education course. The kids get passionate there in the eighth grade. Are we willing to say that a student is required to take such a class? (Sidwell Friends)=== ===Tandem offered an exciting and well received stewardship class, but the following year only one person signed up. These classes also support students who are not so academically strong but who thrive outside and did gardening on campus. (Tandem Friends)===

Environmental/Stewardship Clubs
===Currently in many schools, environmental education is almost like an ancillary club, like a book club. A school cannot expect an environmental action club of 20-30 to be able to lead all the environmental consciousness at school.=== ===Carolina Friends School for two years has had an organized club of over two dozen committed middle schoolers, the EcoChicos. They meet weekly at lunch and initiate and carry through numerous projects from modeling recycling skills, caring for the campus and raising money through selling ecofriendly recycled bags.===

Raising our own food/organic gardening
===Growing food is important. Commercialized food production is one of the main areas eating up fossil fuels. As opposed to fast foods, schools growing their own food and eating it are at the opposite end of the spectrum. By growing their own food, students learn essential skills, eat nutritiously and protect the environment by doing a great deal with that small thing. In learning how to grow their own food, students are learning a life skill.===

New Garden space at CFS Lower School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Garden space a few weeks later (October 08)

===Virginia Beach Friends was really inspired to grow their own food. They want to tie this in to Peace and Social Justice Day the third week in January, which really connects with community. The question is how to tie in to environmental stewardship. (Virginia Beach Friends)=== ===Students gather food for a meal from winter vegetables grown in their greenhouse. Their lower school grows sprouts for a school salad bar. Each class starts for a different week so the supplies overlap. (Westtown)===

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Early October. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Late October. . . . . . . . Photos by Milo

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===Carolina Friends School had been considering building a greenhouse. An upper school environmental class took it on this trimester. It should be completed in the first few weeks of November in time for a middle school class to begin laying the foundation for raising plants for a garden. The greenhouse will have two types of solar heating and the different temperatures will be measured and compared. Units and classes will share the space. (Carolina Friends)===

===The greenhouse at the Meeting School is a simple structure of sloping glass at the end of a building containing three beds and some shelves where they start tomatoes, onions and potatoes, whatever is needed, and plant everything else outdoors. (Meeting School)=== ===A greenhouse was built two years ago and rarely used as it was too far from classes. They also discovered it was either too hot or too cold as the weather changed. They also had a stewardship club that planted for the greenhouse and discovered that one must really watch those seeds carefully to get them to germinate. It makes more sense to have seeds germinating in the classroom where students can keep watch everyday or in a mini cold frame and watch daily. (Tandem Friends).===

Roof garden
===Roof gardens have been created by a retired Friends teacher to encourage green building. The roof garden is set up with 20 plots, four “meter by meter” plots in a row. Plots are available for teachers to use for “for green gardens”. An art teacher is planning a van Gogh sunflower garden. (Sidwell)===

Solar panels on the CFS Middle School Building.


Photos by Milo

One needs something built into the structure of the school unless we simply leave it to the passionate person until they move on and then set about finding someone equally passionate.
===If we as individuals push our schools, we often discover there are a lot of passionate people out there with experience in needed areas. We could be somewhat confident that we will find those people as needed.===

===Friends schools often have the flexibility to permit staff to teach whatever they have the time, energy and passion for. Somehow these environmental options currently tend to become a piece of one’s job when one has a passion and suggest they would like to offer a class and can attract enough kids.and having the energy and time to garden. classes often depend upon who is on site and what their interests are. For example, if a school would like someone proficient in organic gardening, then students would get so much credit toward environmental studies.===

Head Teacher Support
===As we initiate something in the curriculum, let the heads of our schools know what we are doing. If support comes from the head, rather than outside, much more can be accomplished. Maybe we need to encourage our heads to listen. This idea of environmental education is so important that we should investigate and see where it goes. It may look somewhat different as each school addresses its own needs. But in the best case scenario, it comes with the support and encouragement from the head.=== ===Philosophical alignment. The environmental focus fulfills John Dewey’s idea of a laboratory school, linking to the tradition of progressive philosophical/ educational thought by tying classes into this “laboratory of the world”. Environmental education works as a focus for both vocational education, those who are awesome in hands on and really engaged, and offering academic rigor. It is the path to take.===