Top 5 Accomplishments 2011-2015
Environmental Stewardship Signature Program
St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Episcopal School has designated Environmental Stewardship as one of its three identify-defining programs. The other two signature programs, to which Environmental Stewardship obviously relates, are STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and Global Studies. In this report, we will focus on Environmental Stewardship.
Our Environmental Stewardship program has three main goals: (1) to understand and promote the health of the Chesapeake Bay and watershed; (2) to use real-world problem-solving techniques to create healthy ecosystems and mitigate environmental threats; and (3) to promote the idea of individual impact on the larger world.
As a preschool 3s through 8th grade Episcopal school, environmental stewardship is a core value of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field. Just as it is a central part of our mission that each child at our school is grounded in the knowledge that he or she is a child of God, each child also grows in realization of his or her responsibility to cherish and conserve God’s creation.
Increasingly over the last half decade, St. Martin’s Episcopal School developed and deepened its environmental education. In Fall 2014, the school committed to bringing together, coordinating, and articulating its environmental activities and initiatives under a focused, purposeful Environmental Stewardship Signature Program.
Environmental Stewardship at St. Martin’s means that each grade, from preschool through 8th, adopts and carries out environmentally related curriculum that is experiential, age-appropriate, and increasingly complex and nuanced. St. Martin’s students learn to be conscious stewards of the Earth. Here are some of the broad concepts on which our program is predicated:
St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Episcopal School has designated Environmental Stewardship as one of its three identify-defining programs. The other two signature programs, to which Environmental Stewardship obviously relates, are STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) and Global Studies. In this report, we will focus on Environmental Stewardship.
Our Environmental Stewardship program has three main goals: (1) to understand and promote the health of the Chesapeake Bay and watershed; (2) to use real-world problem-solving techniques to create healthy ecosystems and mitigate environmental threats; and (3) to promote the idea of individual impact on the larger world.
As a preschool 3s through 8th grade Episcopal school, environmental stewardship is a core value of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field. Just as it is a central part of our mission that each child at our school is grounded in the knowledge that he or she is a child of God, each child also grows in realization of his or her responsibility to cherish and conserve God’s creation.
Increasingly over the last half decade, St. Martin’s Episcopal School developed and deepened its environmental education. In Fall 2014, the school committed to bringing together, coordinating, and articulating its environmental activities and initiatives under a focused, purposeful Environmental Stewardship Signature Program.
Environmental Stewardship at St. Martin’s means that each grade, from preschool through 8th, adopts and carries out environmentally related curriculum that is experiential, age-appropriate, and increasingly complex and nuanced. St. Martin’s students learn to be conscious stewards of the Earth. Here are some of the broad concepts on which our program is predicated:
- Outdoors education—each grade takes an outdoor education field trip at least once a year if not more. The field trips are focused on preservation of the Bay and its environs.
- Science-based, problem-solving learning that entails discovery, research, collaboration, analysis, data charting, and critical thinking.
- Independent inquiry coupled with shared values and common action.
- Identifying local issues at the home, school, and watershed level to global issues, such as access in developing countries to fresh water or the worldwide decline in honeybee populations, and the ecological principles that connect them.
Student-Leadership: Environmental Club and Recycling Management
St. Martin’s motto is: Learners, Leaders, Friends. With the goal of increasing environmental literacy, our school encourages students to take charge of the environmental initiatives they discuss, organize, and carry out. We provide space for that opportunity in our academic curriculum, in our “Special” classes of Leadership, Art, and Touchstones Discussions, and in our enrichment opportunities such as clubs and service projects.
Our Environmental Club, established in the 2014-15 school year, is student-run with a faculty advisor. The club has a written mission statement. Its purpose is to help St. Martin’s be more Green. The club grew out of the 6/7th grade Leadership class, where students were asked to write a research paper on ways of helping the environment. The club has participated in the production of this application. The club sponsors PA announcements by students that provide energy-saving tips and environmental quotations. It arranges competitions, games and activities, and service action related to environmental awareness.
For many years, St. Martin’s has recycled. Especially in the past couple of years, our students have made us all more aware of recycling. The 5th grade leads the effort. They visit classrooms to speak about the need to recycle and how we at St. Martin’s can do a better job. In our PA announcements in the morning, they remind the school why and how we recycle. They find great quotations about the environment and offer specific tips on how to change our behavior, both at school and at home. They collect the bins that contain white paper and colored paper for recycling. They have placed large color-coded bins in classrooms and in hallways to separate paper and plastic from food waste. All the grades separate their lunch trash into the correct bins.
The results? Our students have decreased solid waste pickup by 30 percent. The ratio of trash: recycling has decreased from 3:1 to 1:1. Our goal for the 2014-15 school year is to recycle more than we throw away.
St. Martin’s motto is: Learners, Leaders, Friends. With the goal of increasing environmental literacy, our school encourages students to take charge of the environmental initiatives they discuss, organize, and carry out. We provide space for that opportunity in our academic curriculum, in our “Special” classes of Leadership, Art, and Touchstones Discussions, and in our enrichment opportunities such as clubs and service projects.
Our Environmental Club, established in the 2014-15 school year, is student-run with a faculty advisor. The club has a written mission statement. Its purpose is to help St. Martin’s be more Green. The club grew out of the 6/7th grade Leadership class, where students were asked to write a research paper on ways of helping the environment. The club has participated in the production of this application. The club sponsors PA announcements by students that provide energy-saving tips and environmental quotations. It arranges competitions, games and activities, and service action related to environmental awareness.
For many years, St. Martin’s has recycled. Especially in the past couple of years, our students have made us all more aware of recycling. The 5th grade leads the effort. They visit classrooms to speak about the need to recycle and how we at St. Martin’s can do a better job. In our PA announcements in the morning, they remind the school why and how we recycle. They find great quotations about the environment and offer specific tips on how to change our behavior, both at school and at home. They collect the bins that contain white paper and colored paper for recycling. They have placed large color-coded bins in classrooms and in hallways to separate paper and plastic from food waste. All the grades separate their lunch trash into the correct bins.
The results? Our students have decreased solid waste pickup by 30 percent. The ratio of trash: recycling has decreased from 3:1 to 1:1. Our goal for the 2014-15 school year is to recycle more than we throw away.
Campus Environment: Salad Garden
St. Martin’s-in-the-Field derives its name from the original 7-acre agricultural field in which the church and school was built in the mid-1950s. Much of our campus is in Critical Areas and is designed indoors and outdoors to promote the health of the bay. Our students learn to take care of our outdoors campus in a number of ways, chief among them are our salad garden, but our rain barrels and native plant restoration have also received attention over the years. A student-led campus clean-up service event takes place in fall and spring. Students plan, create, and maintain these landscapes.
In March 2013, we applied for and received a Bill James Environmental Grant through the Keep Maryland Beautiful program, sponsored by the Maryland Environmental Trust.
We created a salad garden where our kindergarten through fourth grade students planted seeds and seedlings, cared for them, and grew edible heirloom lettuces, arugula, and endive. They harvest their produce and prepare it for table. In the process, they learn how to care for their plants and give them good soil, water, and sunlight. They learn about growing foods organically and eating healthy foods.
Students in kindergarten through grade 4 have taken the lead in the salad garden project. Some parents also volunteer their time and expertise. The project is under the direction of the elementary grade teachers, with particular emphasis in grades 1 and 2.
Our salad garden is the first intentional food planting that our ground has nurtured since the acreage was donated in 1954. It is truly a “return to our roots,” helping our students appreciate Maryland’s agricultural heritage and the implications and responsibilities of the human-impacted environment. The soil, compacted over the decades, was loosened up and has yielded food again.
The salad garden enabled our children to work the earth with their own hands, helping things to grow and harvesting produce for healthy eating at the table. Every Wednesday we have K-8 Salad Bar for lunch to encourage healthy eating. When we have some produce from our garden, we offer that food at the table—a Harvest Day Celebration. We feel that this project is an important part of our Environmental Stewardship program in that young students learn about growing good food in environmentally sound ways, how to keep the soil healthy, and how to appreciate what you grow with your own hands.
St. Martin’s-in-the-Field derives its name from the original 7-acre agricultural field in which the church and school was built in the mid-1950s. Much of our campus is in Critical Areas and is designed indoors and outdoors to promote the health of the bay. Our students learn to take care of our outdoors campus in a number of ways, chief among them are our salad garden, but our rain barrels and native plant restoration have also received attention over the years. A student-led campus clean-up service event takes place in fall and spring. Students plan, create, and maintain these landscapes.
In March 2013, we applied for and received a Bill James Environmental Grant through the Keep Maryland Beautiful program, sponsored by the Maryland Environmental Trust.
We created a salad garden where our kindergarten through fourth grade students planted seeds and seedlings, cared for them, and grew edible heirloom lettuces, arugula, and endive. They harvest their produce and prepare it for table. In the process, they learn how to care for their plants and give them good soil, water, and sunlight. They learn about growing foods organically and eating healthy foods.
Students in kindergarten through grade 4 have taken the lead in the salad garden project. Some parents also volunteer their time and expertise. The project is under the direction of the elementary grade teachers, with particular emphasis in grades 1 and 2.
Our salad garden is the first intentional food planting that our ground has nurtured since the acreage was donated in 1954. It is truly a “return to our roots,” helping our students appreciate Maryland’s agricultural heritage and the implications and responsibilities of the human-impacted environment. The soil, compacted over the decades, was loosened up and has yielded food again.
The salad garden enabled our children to work the earth with their own hands, helping things to grow and harvesting produce for healthy eating at the table. Every Wednesday we have K-8 Salad Bar for lunch to encourage healthy eating. When we have some produce from our garden, we offer that food at the table—a Harvest Day Celebration. We feel that this project is an important part of our Environmental Stewardship program in that young students learn about growing good food in environmentally sound ways, how to keep the soil healthy, and how to appreciate what you grow with your own hands.
Oyster Recovery Project
St. Martin’s students have embarked on a major project as part of Environmental Stewardship. Every K-8 class will participate in the oyster recovery project. With the help of a knowledgeable parent advisor and in partnership with Magothy River Association, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP), St. Martin’s is participating in the Marylanders Grow Oysters program.
On a beautiful day in early fall 2014, fourth-grade students took a field trip to the Magothy River and to the Maryland Yacht Club in Pasadena where they received a delivery of baby oysters—and learned the term “spat-on-shell"—from the ORP. They carried heavy bags of recycled shell to the water, where oyster stewards participating in DNR’s Marylanders Grow Oysters program can pick them up to cultivate oysters in cages on their home piers. Our students loaded six cages of spat-on-shell and took them to the pier at the Maryland Yacht Club. Every month, a different grade from our school goes to the yacht club to shake the cages out, remove sediment, and measure and record water quality, salinity, and temperature to learn more about the river conditions in which their oysters grow. Students also collect, identify, and count the marine life that falls out of the cages' mini-habitat.
At the end of the school year, our fourth graders, who are the “host” class of this program, will travel by Chesapeake Bay Foundation boat to plant their St. Martin’s oysters onto a reef sanctuary in the bay. They know that the oysters will be protected on that reef from harvesting or fishing and will continue to filter bay water and help restore water quality.
The Oyster Recovery project was the subject of a professional development field trip. St. Martin’s faculty, from preschool through 8th grade, including teachers of art, music, technology, library, and physical education, went on the trip to the Maryland Yacht Club and collected data. St. Martin’s is committed to this program, which is central to our Environmental Stewardship. When a class is scheduled for their “oyster day,” there is great excitement in the school.
St. Martin’s students have embarked on a major project as part of Environmental Stewardship. Every K-8 class will participate in the oyster recovery project. With the help of a knowledgeable parent advisor and in partnership with Magothy River Association, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP), St. Martin’s is participating in the Marylanders Grow Oysters program.
On a beautiful day in early fall 2014, fourth-grade students took a field trip to the Magothy River and to the Maryland Yacht Club in Pasadena where they received a delivery of baby oysters—and learned the term “spat-on-shell"—from the ORP. They carried heavy bags of recycled shell to the water, where oyster stewards participating in DNR’s Marylanders Grow Oysters program can pick them up to cultivate oysters in cages on their home piers. Our students loaded six cages of spat-on-shell and took them to the pier at the Maryland Yacht Club. Every month, a different grade from our school goes to the yacht club to shake the cages out, remove sediment, and measure and record water quality, salinity, and temperature to learn more about the river conditions in which their oysters grow. Students also collect, identify, and count the marine life that falls out of the cages' mini-habitat.
At the end of the school year, our fourth graders, who are the “host” class of this program, will travel by Chesapeake Bay Foundation boat to plant their St. Martin’s oysters onto a reef sanctuary in the bay. They know that the oysters will be protected on that reef from harvesting or fishing and will continue to filter bay water and help restore water quality.
The Oyster Recovery project was the subject of a professional development field trip. St. Martin’s faculty, from preschool through 8th grade, including teachers of art, music, technology, library, and physical education, went on the trip to the Maryland Yacht Club and collected data. St. Martin’s is committed to this program, which is central to our Environmental Stewardship. When a class is scheduled for their “oyster day,” there is great excitement in the school.
Electronic Communications and Digital Learning
Over the past five years, St. Martin’s has moved steadily toward its goal of 100% electronic communication with parents. Teachers and administrators have instituted a policy to communicate with families via email (Constant Contact), our website, an online newsletter, and digital announcement flyers. All teachers use classroom webpages as an online resource for parents rather than paper homework assignments. Administrators communicate electronically with vendors and suppliers. More and more, intentionally, school business is transacted digitally.
The elementary grades’ Language Arts curriculum is accessed entirely online. In the 2013-14 school year, the school received a large number of iPads, which are being incorporated into learning in the preschool, elementary, and middle school. Curriculum for our Global Studies program is received electronically, and in the coming year we hope to be able to communicate with students around the world via the Out of Eden Walk Learning/Project Zero site. Middle schoolers submit writing assignments electronically or via student-curated blogs.
Over the past five years, St. Martin’s has moved steadily toward its goal of 100% electronic communication with parents. Teachers and administrators have instituted a policy to communicate with families via email (Constant Contact), our website, an online newsletter, and digital announcement flyers. All teachers use classroom webpages as an online resource for parents rather than paper homework assignments. Administrators communicate electronically with vendors and suppliers. More and more, intentionally, school business is transacted digitally.
The elementary grades’ Language Arts curriculum is accessed entirely online. In the 2013-14 school year, the school received a large number of iPads, which are being incorporated into learning in the preschool, elementary, and middle school. Curriculum for our Global Studies program is received electronically, and in the coming year we hope to be able to communicate with students around the world via the Out of Eden Walk Learning/Project Zero site. Middle schoolers submit writing assignments electronically or via student-curated blogs.