PLT GreenSchools! Gives My Students Leadership Opportunities—And a Voice
Being the advisor to our school’s Green Team has shown me all the things students can accomplish when they’re given leadership opportunities and a voice.
Our “Green Rivers” club started as a grassroots thing, the idea of just two students. Now it involves the whole Two Rivers school community, and many different projects. From the beginning, PLT’s GreenSchools! program has helped our students grow in skills, leadership, and environmental awareness.
A great example is the recent meeting of the National Science Teachers Association in Hartford. PLT GreenSchools! program manager James McGirt called me a little over a week before the meeting to ask if some of our students could join him in his presentation to the science teachers.
Rather than being daunted by the challenge of presenting at a meeting where almost all the other presenters are adults, our students jumped right in. They were really excited, and spent every lunch hour before the meeting developing and rehearsing their PowerPoint presentation. They took complete ownership. The kids really did drive this. I was there to give them support and help them with resources, but they really took charge of everything.
During the NSTA meeting, James McGirt asked our students and the teachers in the audience to stand where they felt they could make a change—with a “1” being a belief that they would be able to make a change in our environment by conserving energy. All our Green Rivers “ambassadors” stood by the “1” and articulated why the future could change if everyone did their part. I was very proud of them!
All the projects our Green Rivers club has undertaken have grown from a Project Learning Tree GreenSchools! training that I, two science teachers, and two of our seventh-graders attended back in the fall of 2009. The students came back to school and got other interested 7th graders to meet once a week at lunch. They used their energy monitoring equipment to see where areas of the school were too hot (or too cold with our AC), and soon the club expanded to include an 8th grade group and a 6th grade group.
Since those early days, the number of projects they have done and are working on as middle school students is very impressive. We had the Alliance for Climate Education come out to our school to give a presentation on climate change, and as a result more students got involved. Our Green Day around Earth Day involved the whole school. Recently we received a $6,000 grant from PLT for a Wind-spire, which we plan to mount on our school’s roof to save on our electric bill.
Our Green Rivers students have created a web page to showcase their work, and have gone out to elementary schools to teach about recycling and composting. Our other big outreach is to educate people about the threat to our trees posed by the Asian longhorned beetle, and to teach people how to spot clues to tree damage and where to report a sighting.
I am amazed at what these students can do. They are so passionate about their mission to make our school, homes, community and world a “greener” place. They are an inspiration and a joy to work with.
Photo: A student-created website is just one of the many projects that the GreenSchools! "Green Rivers" team has undertaken at Two Rivers Magnet Middle School in Connecticut. Among the featured projects: an energy-saving "Wind-spire," funded in part by a $6,000 PLT Green Works grant.
Christie Hazen is an Enrichment Coordinator at Two Rivers Magnet Middle School in East Hartford, CT
