GrowNYC is teaming up with DNAinfo.com, a local digital news service, to award one lucky Manhattan school with a Recycling Champions Program. GrowNYC will provide the winning school with staff and student recycling workshops, a school-wide environmental event and technical assistance to improve the schools recycling program. The K-12 public school with the most votes wins. The contest ends June 30 and the program will begin in September – enter the school contest and vote now. Good luck!

GrowNYC’s Recycling Champions Program works hands-on with multiple schools across NYC to develop model, lasting school recycling programs. By working directly with faculty, administration, students, and custodians in a school, Recycling Champions aims to create best practice guides, resources, and tools that will be made available to every school in NYC. During its first year, Recycling Champions outreached to 8,013 students and 643 classroom teachers.

|e|teach-in

sustainability starts in our classrooms

be the change: connect, share, dream, inspire

pledge: teach about the environment

pick a theme:

make it real: speakers, field trips, films, service learning, greenups/cleanups, mock trials, PSAs, read alouds, webquests, assemblies, poetry slams, launch a project, partner with non-profits

national enviro education week, April 10-16

do it big, start small

RSVP on Facebook to share what you’re doing during enviro education week!

Partners: Earth Day New York, Styrofoam Out of Schools, Green Schools Alliance, Solar One

GREEN GRADES - NYC Schools Recycle! from GrowNYC on Vimeo.

Last summer, GrowNYC hired Robert Lock as a school recycling coordinator.

Since September, when Lock's "Recycling Champions" program began, he has visited 17 schools in all five boroughs. The charitible giving wing of Coca Cola company funds his activities.

Lock is especially focused on cafeterias, said GrowNYC's assistant director, Julie Walsh, where he tries to implement the recycling of beverage containers and the composting of food waste. In classrooms, he begins by focusing on paper recycling.

NYC’s Departments of Sanitation and Education both require schools to recycle, and the DOE aims to double recycling in schools by next year, which may be difficult to track because they have no waste auditing system for schools in place.

The Department of Sanitation does not pick up food waste, but Walsh said that schools with gardens have started implementing their own composting programs. The Brooklyn New School has one of the most ambitious school food waste worm composting systems in NYC.

On the Department of Sanitation's website, educators can order free signage related to recycling or request a visit by Department of Sanitation staff to go over recycling proceedures with custodians.

You can reach Robert Lock at rlock@grownyc.org or 212-676-2081.

ACE Assembly Trailer from ACE Space on Vimeo.

"Miss, what are we doing for Earth Day?"

We're in session this 40th Anniversary of Earth Day and it's upon us. Maybe you already nipped it in the bud and you have a plan, got other staff on board, yada yada. Good for you, you little goody green two shoes.

If not, this will help you heed the call to participate in an Earth Day Teach-In and help you make every day Earth Day.

Here's the deal: The Alliance for Climate Change Education has a rockin' website with some material that'll help you throw together some last-minute climate change lessons. And you can promise your students a follow-up activity by booking a free climate change assembly for high schools. Ease it into the schedule by sharing all of the science standards it nails.

Come on...we need the young ones to get us out of this mess.

Take a second to contact Vernard at vernard.williams@climatechange.org or 702-466-3756. Or you can fill out their short online form.

Yesterday I had a very upsetting conversation with someone about why the schools around mine don't recycle (not that mine is perfect either).  According to her it was because, "nobody cares!"  She went on to say that the fact that I do would ultimately lead to me, "killing myself!"  I'm not sure if she meant literally or metaphorically.  I do feel like I'm killing myself sometimes.  Why do I do this?  Why do I care, especially if it's true that nobody else does?  Is it really true that nobody cares?  I feel like through my organizing efforts I'm trying to seek out the people who like me are "killing" ourselves caring too much or maybe you have found a balance so you aren't killing yourself and are positively affecting change around you.  My belief is it is not that people don't care it's that they are ignorant.  This is the same reason people are racist or sexist, right?  It's all due to ignorance.  It's the job of educators to educate people and then they will care.  So this is an email to request some support.  Why should I continue to care?  Why shouldn't I give up?  Why should I spend my time on issues that supposedly "nobody cares" about?  Why do you care? 

I care because I think of the children who will grow up in a world uninhabitable, depicted in movies like Wall-E and Idiocracy because they are so trashed.  I think of kids eating off of Styrofoam trays who figure, well the adults who designed things like this must have a plan, they must have it all figured out, right?  They are doing the best to take care of the world so I can grow up and enjoy it and continue to live a healthy lifestyle.  But I feel stuck.  I have lists of movies and resources, but I don't know how to use them to teach people to care.  My emails feel like they fall on deaf ears or even aren't read.  Can you reach out and tell me why you care?  I want to live in a world where people care because together I do believe we can make a difference... not me alone, but in cooperation with others who care.  To me it sends a message when people take disposable cups for their coffee that they just don't care about anything but their instant gratification or they are just ignorant.  How can we inform them in a way that they will listen, learn, and care?

Meet the DOE’s Director of Sustainability Ozgem Ornektekin!

   Join us on Tuesday, December 15, 2009 for the

UFT Green Schools Committee Monthly Meeting

   Co-chairs: Coquille Houshour & Micki Josi

Agenda:

4:30 – 4:55    School Recycling Setup

by Mary Most, NYC Department of Sanitation

5:00 – 6:00  

1.     Brief Introductions

2.     DOE Sustainability Committee Presentation by

-John Shea, Chief Executive Officer, DOE Division of School Facilities

-Ozgem Ornektekin, Director of Sustainability, DOE Division of School Facilities

3.   Green Schools Alliance’s Green Cup Challenge Presentation      

6:00 – 6:30    Earth Day Event Subcommittee Planning

Join a subcommittee:

                Recycling and Waste Chairs:  Shannon Buckley-Shaklee and Juliana Germak

             Compost and Gardening Chair: Alison Croney

                School Food Chair: TBD

            SOS (Styrofoam Out of Schools) Chair: Debby Lee Cohen

                Environmental Education Chair:  TBD

                Sustainable Energy Chair:  TBD

Where:            UFT – 52 Broadway, New York, NY 10004   -  212.598.7772

Please RSVP: uftgreenschools@uft.org

Mark your calendar and join us for all our monthly meetings:

1/19/10, 2/23/10, 3/16/10, 4/22/10, 5/18/10, 6/15/10

The UFT Green Schools Committee was established to help realize successful school recycling programs in all NYC schools. Join our Leadership Team to envision school sustainability.   Find out more about our committee and other professional committees at http://www.uft.org/member/committees/                   Join us on facebook!

JOIN THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP DRILLING IN NEW YORK CITY’S WATERSHED
Let the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC-State)
know that they must ban natural gas drilling!
The NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is concerned!

Natural gas drilling of any sort is an industrial activity that can pollute the ground and surface waters that form an integral part of New York City’s drinking water system. "We will do whatever we have to do to protect the watershed," he said. "And that includes whatever legal options are available to us.” Testimony of Steven W. Lawitts Acting Commissioner NYC DEP at NYC Council 10/23/09

RALLY TO "KILL THE DRILL" NEXT TUESDAY AT STUYVESANT H.S.
Sponsored by the Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer MBPO.org/KillTheDrill

Rally to Kill the Drill! Testify! Nov. 10 NYC

Meet Tues. Nov. 10, ‘09 at 5pm outside Stuyvesant H.S. (345 Chambers St.) prior to the DEC Hearing at Stuyvesant H.S. Nov. 10, ‘09 at 6:30 pm. Sign-up to testify at 5:30

Hydraulic Fracturing has been linked to dozens of leaks, spills, and contaminations.
GAS DRILLING ISN'T SAFE - - and it's Time to Act Hear scientific information, written comments and testimony from national and grassroots environmental groups. THE NY CITY WATERSHED IS ONLY PART OF THE STORY Protecting the City's watershed is an important goal - but it is far from the only critical outcome we demand. The Delaware River Watershed which delivers water to Philadelphia, Trenton, Camden and much of   the Catskills is equally important.The water from the Catskill's aquifers which support agriculture and food production for New York City and our area are equally important. The Catskill Park, one of the Northeast's only true wilderness areas within a hundred miles of a major city is equally important. This isn't just about the Catskills - it is also about the whole Southern Tier of New York
 0.
 0. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer  212.669.4462 RSVP@manhattanbp.org,
 0. Joe Levine from www.DamascusCitizens.org and www.NYH2O.org
and Wes Gillingham from www.CatskillMountainkeeper.org will testify.
Other officials & concerned citizens will speak. The DEC must get the message! Numbers will count!  The “Kill the Drill” coalition includes Congressmembers Carolyn B. Maloney, Jerrold Nadler, Public Adv. Betsy Gotbaum, Public Advocate-elect Bill de Blasio, Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, State Sen. Tom K. Duane, Liz Krueger and Daniel L. Squadron, Assm. Members Jonathan L. Bing, James F. Brennan (BILL NUMBER:A8748), Jeffrey Dinowitz, Deborah J. Glick, Richard N. Gottfried, Brian Kavanagh, Micah Z. Kellner, Rory I. Lancman  and Linda B. Rosenthal, Councilmembers Gale A. Brewer, Leroy Comrie, DanielR. Garodnick, James F. Gennaro, Jessica S. Lappin, Melissa Mark-Viverito and Rosie Mendez, City CM-elect Margaret Chin, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), NYH2O, & many NYC Comm. Boards
KILL THE DRILL Public Service Announcement. Blast it EVERYWHERE. Josh FOX
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/7480128YouTube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au4p7clRk-Y