Berkshire County schools add eco-learning to the curriculum

Thursday, February 28, 2008
By Ellen Lahr, Berkshire Eagle Staff

In the world of energy consumption, schools and colleges are the guerillas of change: changing light bulbs, supplementing power with solar panels, adding recycling bins, posting real-time power usage on school Web sites, switching to hybrid vehicles and sprouting new ideas for sustainable campus living.

And at some institutions, the efforts have been infused with an interscholastic twist: competition.

At Berkshire School in Sheffield, students are vying to win in the Green Cup Challenge, competing with 30 other private boarding schools to reduce energy consumption. Williams College is among 400 colleges and universities participating in RecycleMania, to reduce campus waste.

Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and Berkshire Community College are also in the RecycleMania contest, which measures recycling on a per capita basis over a 10-week period.

Not every effort is a contest, however.

For instance, Bard College at Simon's Rock, along with adding solar panels and new fluorescent light bulbs, installed a co-generation system that recycles heat from its athletic center pool, using a 75,000-watt generator to heat the pool and building. In the college kitchen, the chef now buys napkins of recycled materials. There are no vending machines in the college arts center, to reduce plastic waste.

MCLA has also bought a Toyota Prius for its road-warrior admissions staff, for trips to college fairs and recruitment events; a student there is also calculating the college's greenhouse gas emissions.

Hubs of innovation

College campuses in particular are making a big dent in greenhouse gas emissions, according to the National Wildlife Federation, which sponsored a "Focus the Nation" event on Jan. 31 on college campuses nationwide; private boarding schools, with similar self-contained communities, are not far behind.

An NWF report describes concerted energy-improvement efforts at some 100 college campuses, including wind turbines, self-contained geothermal systems and other efforts.

"As traditional hubs of innovation, colleges can model emission reductions that can be replicated by companies and communities," said Kevin Coyle, vice president of education for the National Wildlife Federation. "They can also generate the research and inventions that will be needed for large reductions while preparing a work force that will embrace opportunities for a new low-carbon, energy-smart economy."

Expert help

High schools and grade schools are also in the thick of recycling projects, measuring energy use and capturing solar energy. And, increasingly, they are reaching out to environmental experts for help with everything from bulbs and recycling bins to curriculum development.

Cynthia Grippaldi, education coordinator for the Center for Ecological Technology in Pittsfield, said the CET fields calls daily from schools seeking guidance. The CET is working with MCLA and BCC, along with a number of public schools.

The Berkshire Bank Foundation responded to the increasing demand on the CET with a three-year grant of about $30,000, to help with school-based environmental education outreach. In the first year, Conte Middle School in Pittsfield, Lanesborough Elementary School and Undermountain Elementary School in Sheffield are beneficiaries.

The CET also conducted renewable-energy curriculum training for middle school teachers in February at Hancock Shaker Village for county teachers.

Grade-school efforts

Meanwhile, barely a grade school in the county does not have a "green" initiative of some sort.

Williamstown Elementary School has a "green school" virtual tour on its Web site. Lenox Memorial Middle and High School has new solar panels. Nessacus Middle School has a greenhouse program; two new schools in the Berkshire Hills Regional School District have the latest efficiencies and solar panels.

Bringing environmental teaching into the classroom is a bit more of a challenge, said Grippaldi.

"What we're hearing from teachers and administrators is that environmental education is often treated as an 'add-on,' and not as part of the core curriculum," she said. "But we're digging into the curriculum frameworks and finding that it does fit, and you can still teach this and satisfy the requirements of MCAS."

Schools and colleges are great incubators, as young people are natural learners, they are a captive audience, and they are increasingly aware of their inheritance of the world's health, said Grippaldi and Elena Traister, assistant professor of environmental studies at MCLA.

"The college generation will be the people who are making decisions, either in positions of policy, or working in organizations where they can make it known that they care about recycling and efficiency," said Traister. "They will have a major impact."

At MCLA, student Kara McCall, who leads a subcommittee of the college's sustainability program, said students will become converts through awareness.

"You can't just throw facts at people — they need a clear picture of what's happening and what could happen," said McCall.

Her group is preparing to create a campus "pizza garden" - to grow the ingredients for vegetarian pizza - this spring when the snow thaws, as a step toward self-sufficiency; a campus garden has already been created at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington.

Private schools

At Berkshire School, incandescent light bulbs were replaced with fluorescent ones, and students counted computers and calculated energy use, then came up with ways to cut back. They are involved in an "emissions trading" scheme that encourages dormitories to track their energy use on an actual-cost basis.

And now the school holds "lights-out lunches" and candlelight dinners, to save on watts.