Summary & Top 5 Accomplishments
Clarksville Middle School has always had a strong pro-environment that looks at becoming a “Green School” from a global perspective. Clarksville is one of the oldest middle schools in Howard County and has undergone a great deal of renovation that have aided and hurt our process of becoming green.
Clarksville is one of the largest energy consumers of all HCPSS middle schools because of the addition of portables. In order to combat the massive energy usage we took it upon ourselves in the past couple of years to ensure energy savings. Motion sensing lights have be installed throughout the school. During times of inactivity these lights turn off to save energy. Additionally, students conducted an audit with the help of North Bay Adventure Camp to determine where our biggest energy usage was. Counselors from North Bay joined us at Clarksville and helped us evaluate where our highest energy usage was. From here we initiated programs of energy conservation. Students throughout all grades created signs and placed them over all light switches. These signs asked that staff only use half of the lights in any room. Additionally, students throughout science classes monitored teachers for these actions. As a school we also developed programs throughout each grade to include more students in the “becoming green” process. Students in 6th grade participated in monthly “clean-ups” of our campus. Students toured the school and looked for ways to clean up trash and other debris. Students in 6th grade also attended Outdoor Education for 4 days. In the process, students learned how to promote environmental friendliness, participate in cleaning up the Bay as well as understanding how to prevent erosion and to ensure they were doing their part. 7th grade students at Clarksville began a huge program to solve the problem of stream pollution and malfeasance. Here at Clarksville we have a “Green School Team” that partnered with two other middle schools in Howard County along with Howard Community College. This partnership worked to apply for and receive the Governor’s “Stream Restoration” grant. This grant provided Howard Community College with over two hundred fifty thousand dollars for stream relief. Students at Clarksville in 7th grade and a few students from 6th and 8th have taken trips and are planning many more day long trips to HCC. Here students dug holes, replaced plants, planted trees and pull invasive species. Along the way students learned the process to why this is necessary. Students presented to classes before attending the trip to understand what students were expected to do and why. Students will continue to travel to HCC in an effort to improve their stream quality. Students in 8th grade along with students in across all other grades created an outdoor “reading garden.” Students researched what the requirements were for planting a garden with the wish of having students create a place to go outside and read during lunch. Students research plant types and how to create raised gardens. Students created over 120 square feet of garden space. Students prepared the ground and planted over 40 different type of native plants and bushes in an effort to clean up an unused space outside of our media center. Students also partnered with an environmental scientist to understand why native species are much more sought after than invasive species. Top 5 Accomplishments- Created by Students at CMS Structures For Learning Environment · Near the end of the 2012-2013 school year, CMS’s green school, which consists of students across grade-levels, planted four raised garden beds. In these beds, we planted various fruit plants, like blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry. We also planted many herbs such as catnip, rosemary, oregano. In addition, we planted plants native to Maryland, such as the Black-Eyed Susan, Milkweed, and butterfly bushes. Before the plans for these raised beds were put into action, the students researched all the different plants involved in the garden, and studied the reasoning for the garden. The students also spent many days building the raised bed boards and getting them ready for the plants. · When it got warm and sunny enough, the science teachers allow their students to work outside in the outdoor classroom. The students worked at the tables outside doing classwork, homework, etc. This allows the students to soak in more vitamin D and enjoy the nice weather. It also gives teachers a chance to give hands on experience lessons on nature, making classes more fun to be in. · When classes go outside and learn, they are getting a hands on experience on nature. While all classes benefit from the fresh air and cool/warm weather, science classes greatly benefit from this. Classes can study plants and animals for examples on evolution, anatomy, adaption, pollution, etc. It is also much quieter than inside the building at times. The outdoor classroom is a fun, relaxing alternative to the regular, boring classroom. · From 3:15 to 5, students in the after school art program with Mr. West will be creating posters to inform the school about the clean up that will take place at Howard Community College. The last time students participated in the cleanup, they picked up trash, mulched the plants, planted trees, and had hands on learning experience on conserving nature and its importance. Energy Conservation . The motion sensing lights help save energy when the hallways are not being used. We have 50 minute long classes so in between each class students use the hallways, but during each class we save a 50 minutes worth of hallway lights, so in total we will save six hours of light energy each day. Per year of school we save 1,260 hours of hallway light energy. . Students at Clarksville along with the PTA raised money for low-energy desk lamps for teachers and other staff members. These lamps were given to selected teachers that use more energy, these teachers were required to use less light energy when students are not in the class room. . The light switch signs are near the switches to encourage people to turn off the lights when no one is in the room, or to use minimal lights when they are in the room. When a light is turned on, it uses up energy to light up the classroom, when the room could just use natural light from the windows or turn off one of their two lights. Another way to save light energy is to use lamps instead of ceiling lights. . North Bay came and gave green school the assignment to take a census on all the appliances that were plugged in and not being used or just left on, all the lights that were on but not being used, and how many classrooms used more than the required amount of lights. This was useful for the school because it showed Clarksville Middle what they needed to work on to improve their carbon footprint. It also made people more conscious of how they are using their energy outside of school. That way, they aren't wasting time on problems that are already solved or not spending enough time on the real problems. Finally, after the census was done, North Bay gave green school some tips on how to improve energy besides just turning off lights and appliances. · Every week a different tip that is easy to do and great for the environment was said on the morning announcements by CMS’s TV crew. The students came up with ideas such as; use half of the lights, use a reusable water bottle, and recycle. The students also created a school-wide weekly event known as “Waste-Free Wednesdays.” In Mrs.Vinje’s 6th grade classes, her students used multiple devices to calculate the amount of light used in her classroom. They then used this data to adjust the amount of artificial light they use accordingly. Water Conservation/Pollution Prevention · We are always looking for partnerships with outside communities to help us with our Green School endeavor. They built a rain garden around a drain outside our school, they planted some plants to go along with the rain garden. . The girl scouts, wanting to to earn their silver award, helped out Clarksville middle with preventing erosion in front of the school. They weeded the front lawn, planted flowers, cleaned up the roundabout, and planted a redbud tree. . Water fountains give people nice gulps of water. However, some of the water isn’t drunk, and it gets wasted. Wasted water ends up getting into sewers and other polluted waterways ,which then goes into streams and rivers and oceans. The signs taped up beside water fountains remind people of this and to remind them to use filtered water from home in reusable water bottles, as stated below. · When someone gets a plastic bottle for their water, it is unlikely they throw the bottle away in the recycling bin. When plastic gets thrown in the trash, it gets sent to landfills, where it pollutes the land and takes thousands of years to biodegrade. Even if its sent to the recycling plant, its expensive to turn it into something else. So, using a reusable water bottle not only saves plastic, but it also saves money, not to mention you already have an easy, free way to collect water from a water fountain. Instead of wasting tons of paper writing down all of the stuff that is helping us to be a green school, we use google docs to organize our thoughts. After all, paper comes from trees, and we are all about saving trees and that sort of stuff. Habitat Restoration Students from Clarksville MIddle School partnered with Howard Community College to apply for the Governor’s Stream Relief Grant. The grant was accepted and HCC was given $250,000 to restore the streams at HCC. These streams of the origins for the Chesapeake Bay. 210 7th graders from Clarksville have traveled to HCC and will continue to travel for the next two years to clean the streams. While at the college, students help something else in many ways. They planted new trees and pulled out invasive species. They also mulched in order to keep the water in the soil. In the future, the students will make signs on the trail of the stream. · Some of the teachers, like Mrs. Kolesar, take their students out to the outdoor classroom. They removed the weeds out in new mulch. Also, the students cleaned up the tables and benches. · We will build bluebird houses to take home so that bluebirds can have a place to live all around howard county. We are doing this because bluebirds cannot stay in nests. They have to have a structure Solid Waste Reduction Clarksville Middle School is very proud to be the first middle school in Howard County to have a food composting program. As of February, 2015, all students and staff at CMS sort our lunch trash into three different bins. One bin is for reyclable materials, one bin is for materials that can be composted, and the last bin is for trash that can't be composted or recycled. The entire student body and staff have received training from the Office of Sustainability in how to sort our trash. Before the "Feed the Green Bin" program started at CMS, we recycled only 17% of the waste from lunch shifts; 83% of our waste went to the landfill. In the first week after starting the sorting program, we are now diverting 70% of our waste into either compost or recycle. Only 30% of our waste now goes to the landfill! Students also participate in “Waste Free Wednesdays.” All students on Wednesdays are challenged to waste as little material as possible and recycle as much as possible. Additionally, throughout the month students participate in Fooducate Fridays. Here students bring up what they are eating to the front of the cafeteria. Students use the Apple application Fooducate to compare what they are eating to what they should be eating to be more healthy. The application provides feedback for the students to cut back on waste and to improve their overall health. Every classroom at Clarksville also continues one or more recycling bins for our school-wide paper recycling program. Students are challenged by hallway signs and staff to recycling and reuse as much as possible. Staff also participates in professional development. Much of the professional development focuses on online technology including Google Docs. Much of the purpose of this technology is to reduce paper use across the school. |