Going Green!

When Kermit the Frog croaked his woeful ballad “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” the clever Sesame Street lyricist Joe Raposo surely wasn’t expecting his words to become the national lament for efforts to clean up the environment.

Who’s going green? Click here for updates about green schools and programs.

But the reality of 2009 is Kermie was right. It’s just not that easy to be green, or at least as green as we ought to be. But, in Maryland, thanks to public school environmental science programs, and many related educator-driven initiatives, today’s students are learning what many of their parents did not.

Since 1999, Maryland’s Green Schools program has awarded 201 schools the Green Schools flag. The program uses the environment as a framework for integrating mathematics, the sciences, reading, writing, social studies and the arts.

“This phenomenally successful program is putting Maryland students on the path to environmental stewardship at an early age,” said Governor Martin O’Malley.

Meet five MSTA members who are helping their students become the stewards Gov. O’Malley envisions!

Electric cars, solar panels, windmills

Garrett County electronics and technology education teacher Mark Kirchner is all about bringing innovation and education to students at Northern Garrett (County) HS.

Kirchner’s savvy use of grants—from NEA, the Maryland Energy Administration and the Governor’s Solar Schools Foundation—have helped him get the materials he needs to introduce students to promising sources of alternative power.

This year, Kirchner and his students erected eight solar panels to harness the sun’s energy. The panels are actually hooked into the Allegany Power system, which feeds energy right back to the school’s power grid. It doesn’t generate a lot of power right now in chilly Garrett County, but it’s a very impressive start.

Mark Kirchner hopes the energy saved by solar panels will one day significantly reduce Northern Garrett HS’s environmental footprint.

“I wanted to get the project started so I could show the students how we can convert sunlight to solar energy and regular energy,” Kirchner said. “And, because it works in conjunction with other projects, students can see how all this might come together in the future.”

Kirchner is talking about the school’s first energy-saving project, an electric car. The project matched electronics, engineering and automotive students and took Kirchner and his student crew to a North Carolina electric car competition in 2007. Right now the crew is working to repair the transmission, and plans are to use the solar panels to charge the battery.

Next up for Kirchner and his students? A windmill. He’s already looking at grants. “We definitely have the wind,” he said with a smile.

Of coal mines and trees

Mac Sloan grew up near the coal-rich George’s Creek Watershed, the most heavily mined watershed in the state. Large parts of the area have been deforested. “All my life, I’ve seen the effects of mining, and I’ve always felt we should be doing more to help those lands recover. It’s going to take hundreds of years for it to recover.”

Fueled by what he witnessed, the Allegany County Fort Hill HS biology and environmental science teacher became passionate about reforestation. With the help of colleagues, Sloan brought back to life the school’s long-dormant greenhouse. Since then, his students have started more than 1,500 oak, chestnut and sycamore trees from seed and planted them in Sloan’s beloved George’s Creek area and Rocky Gap State Park.

checking birdhouse Green School Coordinator Michelle Daubon checks on nesting bluebirds.

Sloan’s approach is minimalist. “We don’t buy seed or soil, and we use recycled milk crates and tree planting tubes,” he said. “It’s fun working to reduce costs, labor and our impact. Students really like the whole process of working in the greenhouse rather than listening to me talk about it.”

Sloan says his subject is unique because he can go beyond the curriculum to “instill values, change behaviors and improve students’ relationship with their environment,” As a teacher and environmentalist, he adds, “That’s my goal as a science teacher.”

Green schools and bluebirds

Thanks to educators like instructional assistant Michelle Daubon, students in Calvert County are building bluebird houses and schoolyard habitats, and using the area’s rich natural resources as living laboratories. For these students and many others across the state, environmental sciences programs like Calvert’s Chespax teach them how to make responsible earth-friendly decisions.

Daubon is a Green School Coordinator. She and colleagues run the field component of the county’s environmental science units for students. When she’s not working directly with students and helping to secure funding and experts to develop projects, Daubon is in the field, visiting with the individual Green School Coordinators.

students and teacher
Reforesting the beautiful topography of Western Maryland is a passion Mac Sloan shares with his students every day.

Creating bluebird habitat restorations is a favorite project of bird-lover Daubon, who helped create the one at Mount Harmony ES. Much of the open space bluebirds love has been lost to commercial and residential development in the county, and the hands-on habitat projects allow young students to monitor the number of nests, eggs, hatchlings and fledglings of each house on the trail. “It’s an excellent learning platform for many skills. Students love it because the babies are cute and the adults are so pretty,” Daubon said.

As Daubon prepares for a degree in biology and moves her education career to another level, she continues to keep an eye on her bluebirds. Among the community workshops she’s scheduled for next month, and again in May, are two devoted to educating and cultivating “citizen bluebird watchers” who can provide the critical data she and other environmentalists need to assure the bluebird population continues to thrive.

Saving the Bay one student at a time

Sometimes the difference between getting credit for an AP biology class and not, Easton HS teacher Cheryl Overington discovered, is understanding and combining hands-on experience with true research. So when she wanted to implement a year-long research project focusing on the environment to prepare her students for the inevitable challenge, she called fellow Talbot County Education Association member Leeann Hutchinson, a predecessor at Easton HS.

Students clean their plates at Anne Arundel’s Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center during Farm-to-School Week.

Karen Muehlberger: “Students couldn’t get over the fact that their food came from a farm right down the road.”

Hutchinson, now an environmental education specialist“on loan” to the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), had plenty to share with Overington, who is now in her second year of AP biology. During the 20 years Hutchinson spent at Easton HS, her teaching strategy included visits from working scientists, reviews and analysis of their research, and visits to their worksites or labs.

“I saw a remarkable improvement in comprehension of challenging scientific concepts, and decided that in my new position I would like to expand the program to reach more teachers and their students.”

For Overington, Hutchinson’s approach rang true, and today a number of AP biology students at Easton HS are paired with mentor scientists from the Cooperative Oxford Lab, conducting research and compiling data on beached mammals and oyster disease—all with an eye toward restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

“My key focus is the Bay,” Overington said. “We live on the shore and have so many opportunities to improve the health of the Bay. With the mentors, students get a truly important and ecologically legitimate experience plus a taste of what a real scientist does.”

From farm land to schoolhouse

When the 2008 General Assembly passed the Farm-to-School Program, it was a huge win for students, farmers and the environment. The program is dedicated to promoting the sale of locally grown farm goods to schools, finding those farmers and connecting them to schools.

students and teacher
Easton HS students work with their mentor scientist on an oyster recovery research project. Inset: Cheryl Overington

Maryland kicked off the first Homegrown School Lunch Week last September, and an impressive 400 schools in Anne Arundel, Carroll, Cecil and Montgomery counties featured local produce in their menus.

In Anne Arundel, teacher Karen Muehlberger took full advantage of the opportunity to work with Millersville ES fifth grade students on their overnight visit to Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center.

“You could see the light bulbs going on. Students were talking about it the whole week,” Muehlberger said. “They couldn’t get over the fact that the food they were eating came from a farm right down the road, instead of coming from hundreds or thousands of miles away.”