Small Grants for National Environmental Education Week
Success Story #2: Horace Mann Elementary School
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A student uses reusable lunch containers to reduce waste at Horace Mann |
During the 2008-2009 school year , Horace Mann School in Washington, DC has been actively involved in an EE Week Small Grant project to reduce the amount of packaging and waste from students’ lunch; to plant, harvest, and prepare nutritious food grown from school gardens, and to develop a garden composting system by collecting food scraps and garden waste that can be recycled into rich humus.
According to Seventh Generation, it is possible to prevent the release of 1,200 pounds of C02 annually simply by cutting garbage output by 10%. Horace Mann students faced this challenge of waste reduction head-on, collecting data on the amount of container and food waste generated during their lunch hour and developing strategies to reduce it. After an extensive education campaign to students, parents, and teachers it was noted that there was a measurable decrease in the amount of trash generated at lunch. Over a five day period, lunch brought from home using cloth napkins and reusable containers produced 119 fewer pounds of trash than hot lunch! Students are currently interested in providing this data to the city’s school food service in the hopes of improving the way school lunch is packaged.
As part of their EE Week grant, Horace Mann also expanded a local eating campaign. Students have planted vegetable seeds in 12 raised beds providing herbs, garlic, greens, potatoes, and carrots for future stir-fries, smoothies, and salad parties at the school. Since most food travels over 1,500 miles to reach the dinner table, Horace Mann’s efforts to grow local food for the cafeteria will have a significant impact on their carbon footprint.
The school will host its annual Earth Day Festival on April 24, bringing together students, faculty, parents and community members to learn more about how to make their school—and their extended community—a more green place to live, learn, and work. The festival will feature student demonstrations of the school’s new composter, a 2nd grade skit showing how little ideas to help the planet are just as important as big ideas, results from students’ “Greener is Cleaner” projects, and reports from 6th graders who have conducted an energy audit of the school building.
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| Students compared the amount of waste generated from hot lunch versus home lunch |
