Through a series of partnerships with community members, George Hall embarks on the waste reduction challenge by embracing innovation!
Summary
George Hall partnered with outside community members and students to do the following action items with the goal of instituting new waste reduction practices that would be effective and long-lasting:
Partnered with SF State School of Design students who created the visual imagery and sorting signage.
Created waste sorting station prototypes with the input of Phil Evans, Custodian Alvaro and students to analyze the outdoor lunch landscape, student movement and flow, student needs, dynamics and constraints.
Earmarked PTA funds were used to purchase 2 green compost Brutes, 1 blue recycling Brute, aprons and pickers for student Green Team
Parent Nicole Garza created a short slide set and made it available to teachers in all classrooms to educate students on sorting basics. Nicole was careful to used the imagery created by the SF State design student that would later be used on the lunchtime waste sorting stations.
More parent volunteers were enlisted to help on Mondays and Tuesdays when initial waste sorting stations were set-up.
Some classes continued waste education via worm composting workshops.
Parent Sola Grantham designed and built prototypes of a foldable waste sorting station informed by suggestions Custodian, parent Green Team and student input.
The OOS Schools Program was brought in in early 2020 to do school-wide waste sorting station assemblies and help with student Green Team recruitment.
The new George Hall Parent and Student Green Team continued with their waste diversion efforts 2-3 times per week.
Waste that was ultimately sorted: Food waste, liquids, milk cartons and recyclables, and food trays (set aside to be incoporated into compost stream at the end of lunch period.
Additionally, students made use of an informal Food Share table.
Photos
Sorting Slideshow for classrooms
From Concept to Prototype to Finished Waste Sorting Station
Use this GSS website to find action projects and tools to help your classroom, school, or district to conserve resources, reduce its carbon footprint (CO2 emissions), and get certified under the Green Star School program (Note – currently, GSS certification is only for classrooms, schools, and districts in San Mateo County.)
Once your classroom has completed an action project you can use the GSS website to create a project report to share what your class has done and learned to conserve resources and reduce C02 emissions. Our tools can help you determine how much C02 was saved by your project and your class can proudly display this on the GSS C02 Saved Leaderboard.
To get started, go to the Project and Tools section to find projects that help your classroom become GSS Certified (school and district certification will be available in Spring 2016).
Please note you can search and use the information and action projects and tools on this website without signing up your classroom. Nevertheless, we strongly encourage teachers in Alameda and San Mateo County to sign up their classrooms, so you can report and share your result and showcase your C02 reductions on the GSS leaderboard.
.png)
.png)