Edible Gardens, Here We Come!

Mrs. Cvengros and I applied to be a part of a training opportunity offered by BCPS and Maryland Agriculture and were accepted!  We will take the 36 hour, year long series to learn all about edible gardening, so that we can construct an edible garden in our new schoolyard.  They will even give us a $200 garden starter package.  Only 5 schools were chosen to be a part of this, so we feel so honored to be chosen.

If you’re interested in our training program, check it out:

Edible Schoolyard Training Program 2016

Wednesday	January 13, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	History of Ag/Ag and the Bay
Thursday	February 11, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	BCPS Protocol/Site Selection
Thursday	March 3, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Soils/Soil Testing/Seed Starting
Wednesday	April 6, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Garden Design/Bed Prep/Compost
Wednesday	May 4, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Gardening with Children/Curricular Connections
Wednesday	June 1, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Harvest/Food Prep Safety
Wednesday	June 8,. 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Closing Garden, Planning for Fall, IPM, Weeding
Saturday	September 10, 2016	9:00am-4:00pm	Field Day on Farm and in Gardens
Thursday – Teachers’ Night on the Farm	October 20, 2016	4:00pm-7:00pm	Attend and Present
Wednesday	November 16, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Hydroponics
Wednesday	December 7, 2016	5:00pm-8:00pm	Graduation

 

Clean Green 15 Promo

Check out the promo we made to try to get people to help us with the Clean Green 15 Challenge:

 

Thrift Holiday Shoppe

For at least ten years, Westowne has had an eco friendly holiday shop. Westowne families donate gently used books, ornaments, toys, games, jewelry, and other great gift items. Some parents even make crafts out of recycled materials and donate candies or bath items to stuff into used coffee cups to make the gifts complete. The best part is that besides the fact the environment is saved, all the money earned at the shop is pure profit. Down with store bought, factory made holiday gifts and up with out thrift holiday shop!  

    
    
 

Clean Green 15 Bag Station

Resident graphic designer, Jakob, created a sign for our Clean Green 15 bag station. Hopefully the station will help kids at school to clean up our school grounds. All the plastic bags come from our Recycling Center. If you take them, consider dumping the trash out in the trash can and reusing it!  

   

Clean Green 15 Begins

My class started picking up trash at recess. They collected four grocery bags full of trash from our play area. They are trying to help us win the Clean Green 15 litter challenge. You can help us too!  Go to http://www.bcps.org/teamBCPS/cleanGreen15/default.html to log your efforts!

  
  
  

Full Support

Mr. Baker, our chief, bought us these new lids for our recycling bins. It was Ms. Marion’s idea. She’s in charge of the cafe. She noticed kids throwing nonrecycleable items into the bins and thought the lids would help. Mr. Baker jumped right in it and got her the lids. It’s great to work in a place where people care about the Earth. It definitely takes a team to make a real difference.  

 

Green Team Working Hard!

Our Green Team worked hard after school Monday on all our initiatives:

Ms. Musacchio and Ms. Murphy took a walk to inspect the blue bird houses.  Sadly, they reported that only 3 of our boxes have survived.  One box had a wren’s nest in it so, we have to get those boxes in tip top shape before February to ensure they are ready for nesting season.

Mrs. Albert made posters to try to get teachers and students to participate in our December initiative, a door decorating contest where students only use recycled materials.  Mrs. Shuman is going to take pictures of the doors and lead an online voting forum to see who is the winner.

Ms. Musacchio also made this awesome new bulletin board, the Community Corner, to help acknowledge good citizens in our school.  It was her idea to post Green contest winners here.

Mrs. Shuman shared her work on making lessons for the students teaching them the dangers of Styrofoam and Mrs. Jang shared her work on January’s initiative.  She is going to coordinate this year’s Jeans for Teens campaign.  Ms. Kim is on the job to make sure our school has all their Green Ambassadors displayed in the halls.  Mr. McKusker took care of recycling more ink cartridges to help our school recycle and earn money for our school and Ms. Getsinger is on the case to promote the Clean Green 15 Challenge.