Eagle Ridge Junior High

13955 Glendale Road , Savage, MN 55378
Treehuggers!

The Eagle Ridge Junior High Treehuggers Environmental Club is made up of 10 or so students who are truly dedicated to the environment. We are passionate about trying to transition our school, and the world to sustainability.

We understand that we can’t do it alone. We need people all over the world, working together, united, changing our world and trying to make it as perfect as it possibly can be. We love working together with other environmental clubs across the state, and hope you will join us on our mission. We have many ideas we are putting forward to make our community more sustainable. Sharing ideas with other schools, we can all truly be the best that we can be.

So please help us achieve our goals as we help you achieve yours.

We will be posting our ideas and events continually. Please consider them, and let us know if your interested in using them too! As we said, we are passionate about changing the world and would love to help you customize an event to better fit your schools need. Additionally, please, please communicate with us if you have an idea you think we should try. Whether it is through posting a topic in the forums about it, posting the event in the events section, or just sending us a quick email saying “Hey! Were going to try to [transition to reusable trays]! We brainstormed some ways we think we can do it. [Here they are:] Do you guys know of any other way we could do it? Anything we missed? Foresee any major problems?” Etc.

Together let’s change the world!

Thanks for reading!

-Treehuggers

Email: soccergoal1002@aol.com – Mark Rugnetta, Eagle Ridge Junior High Environmental Club President
Kerry Hoeschen, khoeschen@burnsville.k12.mn.us

Transitioning from polystyrene (Styrofoam) to reusable cafeteria trays!

Other

We are working on transitioning our entire district (Burnsville-Eagan-Savage District 191) to reusable cafeteria trays.

We currently throw away approximately 3 million styrofoam trays each year throughout our district. We are currently communicating with our district’s food service directer and othe key figures throughout our district. We estimate the cost will be a $40,000 up front cost to purchase 8,000 reusable trays for the district, along with buying back our sold dishwasher machines. We project this goal will take 3 years, and will fundraise accordingly.

Annual replacement of broken reusable trays (broken or thrown away trays, etc.), water, and energy cost will be offset by the savings in garbage disposal and constant buying of styrofoam trays.

In order to save money, we will also have a volunteer program where students, teachers, and parents will be able to wash the trays instead of food service staff, saving us money, and giving us an annual net savings in the longterm.

To stop use of styrofoam cafeteria trays completely in our district by Fall, 2011.

Future Goals

Other

We recently had a meeting, and planned the future goals of the Eagle Ridge Environmental Club. It was an incredible meeting, and we are more energized, inspired, and ready to change the world then ever before. We realize our goals are VERY aggressive, but looking at the progress we’ve already made, the people we’ve met from other schools, and the passion of the new generation of youth, we believe it is very possible. But as we say a lot, it’s going to take a group effort, and so we hope we can make Schools Cutting Carbon more than just another network. We want to make it network of schools that will work together, and WILL change the world.

Here is our list, and we hope you will find some that you would like to do, and if you have any suggestions for us to add, or any questions about our project, you can email our president, Mark Rugnetta, at soccergoal1002@aol.com! Thanks! :)

Future Goals of our Environmental club:

Lights Out Day District Wide (Fall 2009)
http://www.schoolscuttingcarbon.org/forum/27/lights-out-day-how

Lights Out Day State Wide (Fall 2010)

Lights Out Day Nation Wide (Fall 2011)

Lights Out Day World Wide (Fall 2012)

City Wide Recycling Drive (May 2009)

Make stationary bikes in weight room when used create electricity, like WCCO at the State Fair (Fall 2009)

Dodgeball Fundraiser (2009-2010 school year)
http://www.schoolscuttingcarbon.org/forum/41/fundraising-idea-dodgeball-…

Update all lights in school to the most energy efficient/greenest of it’s type (Fall 2010)

Update all lights in district to the greenest/energy efficient of it’s type (Fall 2011)

Unchill water fountains – SSC Audit suggestion (Fall 2009)

Successful 90% computer monitors shut off in computer labs (June 2009)
Note: We now use a program that shuts all computers off at 3:30, but monitors must be turned off manually by students at the end of the day

Printer dedicated and used constantly for one sided paper (Fall 2009)
See second post: http://www.schoolscuttingcarbon.org/forum/27/help-our-school-save-energy

Roof Garden/Roof Rainwater collector (Fall 2010)

Greenhouse (2012)

Get our school “LEED Certified” (Fall 2009)
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=64

Start composting food in cafeteria (Fall 2009)

Reach out and green 10 local business (Fall 2009)

Green 30 local businesses (Fall 2009)

Join the “Adopt A Highway” program as an environmental club (Fall 2009)

Eliminate all extra/unneeded lights at Eagle Ridge (Fall 2009)

Rewire electrical system to have different switches for different areas (Fall 2010)
Note: Right now, every single school hallway light and bathroom light are on the same one switch, so even on bright days the hallway lights are still on. And each classroom only has one light switch, making turning off specific rows of lights impossible. We are looking into our options to rewiring the building to save electricity.

Plant trees all over our district (Fall 2009)

Retrofit all of Eagle Ridge (Fall 2010)
Note: Get most energy efficient boilers, air conditioning system, heating, etc.

Retrofit entire district (Fall 2012)

Hold an sign rally on all major streets in our city for certain events (Fall 2009)
Note: Hold signs advertising different things on the street, like Earth Hour, etc.

Sign up 450 households at Eagle Ridge for the MN Energy Challenge (June 2009)
http://mnenergychallenge.org/

Have 15 active environmental club members over the summer

Have 30 active environmental club members for the 2009-2010 school year

Have an assembly/presentation on the environment all or most of the day to entire school (2009-2010 school year)

Lobby a state representative on passing environmental legislation as an environmental club (Fall 2009)

Lobby a senator/congressional representative on passing environmental legislation as an environmental club (Fall 2010)

Have a hybrid bus fleet for the district (Fall 2011)

Have a 100% renewable energy bus fleet for the district (Fall 2014)

Get a windmill to power the district (Fall 2014)

Cover as many roofs of district buildings as we can with solar panels (Fall 2012)

Have a tray stacking program for our polystyrene/styrofoam cafeteria trays to decrease the volume of waste as we transition to trayless/reusable (Fall 2009)

Styrofoam/Polystyrene trays gone, switch to trayless or reusable cafeteria trays, all district (Fall 2011)

Ban styrofoam/polystyrene cafeteria trays in public schools in Minnesota (Fall 2015)

Ban styrofoam/polystyrene cafeteria trays in public schools in U.S. (Fall 2017)

All district powered by renewable energy (Fall 2020)

Cut Eagle Ridge, district, state, country, and world carbon amounts by 20% (2015)

Cut Eagle Ridge, district, state, country, and world carbon amounts by 45% (2020)

Cut Eagle Ridge, district, state, country, and world carbon amounts by 80% (2050)

Bring the atmosphere’s carbon level down from 387 parts per million to 350, which is the maximum level that the world can operate normally at. Any higher and the arctic will melt, natural disasters will be even more devastating, there will be worse droughts and food shortages, etc. (2050)

Stop global warming, climate change, and save the world (2060)
:)