Bottle Cap Mural Unveiling / Schoolyard Garden Celebration
On Thursday, June 9th, the Highlandtown #237 Green Team is inviting students from grade-level bands (pre-k-1; 2-3; 4-5; 6-8) to take part in a day-long celebration of the school's bottle cap mural, which the team will temporarily install at the school's outdoor garden. This will be an opportunity for the Team to show off the good work that it has done in saving the necessary bottle caps to create such a mural, as well as to highlight the hard work they have done in preparing the garden space. The garden currently includes the following elements (and we believe that celebrating and highlighting these elements will allow the Team to spark the attention and participation of more teachers and students): 1.) A bird- and butterfly-friendly garden, planted by the Green Team; 2.) an herb garden, spread across four raised beds (made with the help of Great Kids Farms, who donated soil, raised bed materials, and plants); and 3.) a vegetable/flower garden, where the students planted vegetable seeds obtained from Great Kids Farms and flowers purchased from Di'Pasquale's, a local Italian market and deli just 1/2 block up the street from the school.
Bulletin Board
At two points during the 2015/2016 school year, the Green Team has put up an environmentally-themed bulletin board to highlight the work of the team and to broadcast the team’s efforts. The first effort (shown below with a blue background) was a collage project made from reused magazine pictures and cut-outs, as well as reused pieces of cardboard for the backing of the images. This bulletin board has been used to advertise the Green Team's efforts to the school for the past three years, although regular maintenance and project-specific work were not always part of that effort. At present, the goal of the Team is change the board each quarter, highlighting student artwork, upcoming projects that the Green Team is working on, and the school-wide recycling campaign.
The latest student-created Green Team bulletin board includes signs depicting what to recycle/what not recycle; these signs were made by the students as part of a two-day green team curriculum designed to increase their awareness of recyclable materials so that they can then go out and instruct their classmates. The current intention is to copy the signs in order to place one next to each classroom’s recycling bin. In this way, the content of the bulletin board is reflected in the signs that hang all over the school--an attempt to create multiple and varied eye-catching methods of changing student behavior. The Highlandtown #237 Green Team faces an uphill challenge, currently, as a great deal of the students in the building are still throwing food and other trash into the recycling bin on a regular basis. By the end of the school year, the students will give a short overview to their grade level classes about the differing materials depicted in their signs, giving them a chance to take a leadership and instructional role in their classes.
In addition to the recycling signs, the students also included eye-catching artwork they created with characters meant to look like online "emojis"; each emoji has a speech bubble with a phrase about the importance of recycling and taking care of the planet.
The latest student-created Green Team bulletin board includes signs depicting what to recycle/what not recycle; these signs were made by the students as part of a two-day green team curriculum designed to increase their awareness of recyclable materials so that they can then go out and instruct their classmates. The current intention is to copy the signs in order to place one next to each classroom’s recycling bin. In this way, the content of the bulletin board is reflected in the signs that hang all over the school--an attempt to create multiple and varied eye-catching methods of changing student behavior. The Highlandtown #237 Green Team faces an uphill challenge, currently, as a great deal of the students in the building are still throwing food and other trash into the recycling bin on a regular basis. By the end of the school year, the students will give a short overview to their grade level classes about the differing materials depicted in their signs, giving them a chance to take a leadership and instructional role in their classes.
In addition to the recycling signs, the students also included eye-catching artwork they created with characters meant to look like online "emojis"; each emoji has a speech bubble with a phrase about the importance of recycling and taking care of the planet.
Clean Up Highlandtown Day
An annual event is held at HEMS 237 to have a spring clean up and celebration of our neighborhood. This year's event took place on Thursday, April 21st. Parents, staff, and community members are all invited to this event. Approximately 15 students from grades 3-6 took part in this event, alongside two staff members, a local mother, and volunteers from Blue Water Baltimore and the Patterson Park Audubon Center. In the Spring of 2015, 24 students from grades 3 through 6 took part in that year's “Clean-Up Highlandtown Day” and garden fence building project.
In addition to this school-wide event, we are including several photos below of smaller, focused schoolyard cleaning efforts undertaken by the Green Team, in an effort to get the students to begin to pass along attitudes of community stewardship throughout the school year. Of particular note, students from the Green Team (19 total students from grades 3rd-5th) took part in a dual “Schoolyard Clean-Up and Garden Prep” day on 10/6/2015. On this day, students split up, with half of the students picking up trash around the schoolyard and half using shovels and rakes to prep the the Audubon Bird- and Butterfly-friendly garden space.
In addition to this school-wide event, we are including several photos below of smaller, focused schoolyard cleaning efforts undertaken by the Green Team, in an effort to get the students to begin to pass along attitudes of community stewardship throughout the school year. Of particular note, students from the Green Team (19 total students from grades 3rd-5th) took part in a dual “Schoolyard Clean-Up and Garden Prep” day on 10/6/2015. On this day, students split up, with half of the students picking up trash around the schoolyard and half using shovels and rakes to prep the the Audubon Bird- and Butterfly-friendly garden space.
Students from the Green Team (19 total students from grades 3rd-5th) taking part in a dual “Schoolyard Clean-Up and Garden Prep” day on 10/6/2015. On this day, students split up, with half of the students picking up trash around the schoolyard and half using shovels and rakes to prep the the Audubon Bird- and Butterfly-friendly garden space.