4/20/12 – Towson, MD — Earth Day 2012 is Sunday, April 22 and this week, April 16-22, was Earth Week. This year, through Garrett McPartland (Social Studies Department) and the Green Initiative, Calvert Hall had a week of activities and opportunities to increase student awareness of environmental issues. Faculty and staff also participated in the initiative to promote and model “green” prcactices. The following is an overview of the week’s activities.

Week long Initiatives (for April 16-22):

  1. The Daily Bulletin – Calvert Hall limited the number of paper copies of the Daily Bulletin. A paper copy of the bulletin was posted in the showcase outside the Admissions Office and one was hung in the Middle Faculty Room. Limited copies were posted to department offices. The Bulletin was read over the school P.A. system and it will still be available on the school website.
  2. Dining Hall Cups – The traditional Styrofoam cups were replaced with recyclable plastic cups (at no extra cost to the consumer).
  3. Pushing Paperless – Teachers and students were asked to be particularly conscious of the amount of paper they were using this week.

    EXAMPLES of “Going Paperless”:

    • Use of turnitin.com for submissions & grading
    • Re-use of returned homeworks and scan-tron sheets for multiple quizzes
    • Accepting papers with irrelevant print on the back

 

The Week’s Activities:

 

Monday – Making a Commitment
The school kicked off Earth Week activities with information published around the school. There were tables in the dining hall for students to commit to “acts of green” on the website act.earthday.org.

Tuesday – Energy Conservation
The entire CHC school community was encouraged to be aware of energy consumption and reduce unnecessary use. Teachers modeled this through vigilantly turning off projectors when not in use and putting computers on stand-by. If ample sunlight was available, teachers exercised the option to teach with the lights out.

Wednesday – Waste Reduction
Having encouraged students to recycle and pack their lunch in re-usable containers, and having already taken our baseline school data on the approximate pounds of trash produced in the dining hall in one day, we determined if the trash produced in the dining hall on Wednesday has been reduced.

Thursday – Paperless
Hoping to model a deliberate use of resources, the school community was strongly encouraged to re-use paper and limit printing/copying on this day. While the copier was certainly available, it received only light use.
Storm Drain Labeling – We enhanced the drains on campus with a label that calls attention to each drains connection to the Herring Run Watershed and ultimately to the Chesapeake.

Friday – Recycling Pick-Up
The Green Initiative proceeded with a weekly recycling pick-up and conducted a weight assessment of all paper recycling (to be compared to baseline data). ·
Students and teachers had the opportunity to sign petitions in the dining hall for environmental issues, such as Chesapeake Bay protection and Clean Water Action.

Saturday – Highway Clean-up
The Green Initiative and any who chose to attend cleaned up trash on Calvert Hall’s mile stretch of York Rd. from 8-10am Saturday morning.