IA LEAP High School
Our team consists of 48 Environmental Science students from current or past classes and a future Environmental student with extensive experience growing plants. The students are all native speakers of other languages: Amharic, Anuak, Hmong, Karen, Nepalese, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Yoruba. They bring a lot of knowledge of natural environments in other parts of the world and many creative ideas about how our school can cut carbon. Every spring, Environmental Science students write and conduct an interview of every staff person (50 total) at the school to gather information on energy use and conservation efforts. (The students got lots of good ideas for this year’s questions from the CERT visit to our school.) Students create beautiful certificates to award to staff and student volunteers who are making the greatest efforts to cut energy consumption at school. These awards are given out by the students after they have analyzed all the interview data. Spring 2010 students will also create and conduct an interview of students. (Broadening the interview as a way of educating and assessing student knowledge was suggested by this Fall’s classes.)
Bonita Ifa 'Beautiful Light'
Four years ago Environmental Science class students designed, named, and tested the Bonita Ifa* window coverings that are still on the windows in the office of our principal, Rose Santos. Sewing students at LEAP did the cutting and sewing. The cloth is backed with Thinsulate and attached to the window frame with Velcro. The construction of the coverings turned out to be difficult and costly so students are now working on a new version of the Bonita Ifa. This version consists of thin paper on which a student artist has painted a landscape (4 landscapes per room). It will be hung in the windows to protect students from the glare of direct sunlight. (In interviews, staff said they kept shades down because of student complaints of glare on sunny days when shades were up.) Current Environmental science classes are making a baseline against which to test the Bonita Ifa’s ability to reduce electric lighting: they are checking every office and class each day for number of lights on and shades up.
Brenda reading surface temp of Bonita Ifa in Ms. Santos’ office
*Bonita is ‘beautiful’ in Spanish and Ifa is ‘light’ in Oromo.
To reduce the use of electricity for lighting; to increase the use of daylight; to establish a baseline against which a variety of ideas for reducing electric lighting can be tested.
Greening our School
Members of the Chloroglobal “Green World” Club are learning plant care hands on (watering, light needs, organic insect control, composting, methods of propagation, basic botany) as each team manages a group of plants in a different part of the school building or yard. Students also price and sell plants to raise funds for the club and gain entrepreneurial experience. Plants include many tropical plants that students know from their home countries, including a variety of herbs and peppers. Neighborhood gardeners, including a master gardener, give weekly support and training.
To reduce the need for transporting food by growing food locally; to reduce emissions through photosynthesis; to encourage teachers to keep shades up by providing plants and plant care in their classrooms
Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon is a program of Clean Energy Resource Teams, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and Minnesota Office of Energy Security. Funding provided by Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.
email: SchoolsCuttingCarbon@CleanEnergyResourceTeams.org
411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108
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