Thursday, August 18, 2011

NAIS Green team, Green Schools Training student reflection

Oklahoma Green School Training:

The Green School Training was a helpful session, but it was like reading a manual. I applaud the team who put it together, but next just make some hands on activities to give us experience that maybe teachers could past down to their students. A lot of information would have carried on better, if they presented it in a lively way, but overall a good job.

Les Pace:
When I think of Mr. Pace, I got 4 words, Environmental know it all. This man knows what he is doing, and he can explain to people who have never even heard of the word environmental. He devotes his time to his community, and communities abroad. Mr. Pace lives a 2 hour drive from my school, and he came all the way to explain how to audit a school. He is very helpful, knowledgeable, and he gives you ways to save money.

NAIS Challenge 20/10:  Millennium Goal: Sustainable Earth
This year working with the 20/20 project was phenomenal. I discovered another country's point of view on being green in a school environment. It's opens a lot of minds to opportunities, that we can share, and eventually achieve, not only improving our school, but a strong relationship. The Turkish school and Casady were very alike and exchanging ideas eventually led to successful projects. Our relations grew, cultures are mixed, and how we all view the world is changed. This is a great experience, and I look forward to another great year.



Friday, August 12, 2011

New Recycling Program for the City of the Village

Waste Connections Recycling Bank

Sherri Pidcock, 751-8661, Extension 255
-Program for Residential, but part of the program could be implemented at Casady School.
-Schools can benefit: Residents can donate their points to us or we can earn points ourselves.
-We earn points for what we recycle. We redeem points for products. Schools can receive donations from residents. We can also apply for green grants.
-They will get us carts. The cart has a scanner. It weights it and converts it into points. Glass can only be clear, green or brown. Everything can go together in the cart: Paper, plastic, cardboard, aluminum, plastic. The location of carts needs to be carefully considered. $4.55 per month per cart. 90 or 95 gallon.
Look at recycle bank http://www.recyclebank.com/ . See if it is what we want to pursuit. A rep will come from Waste Connections to train if we think it will be what we want. Sales Rep from Waste Connections: Brenda Merchant: 745-2942, 613-9996(cell)-brendam@wasteconnections.com

-The current recycling program, for paper, provided $40 last year.
-We need to decide if we keep what we are doing, change to the Village, or consider

A great recycling resource: e-mail: SPA - PEP RecycleRally Website: http://www.dreammachinerecyclerally.com/  . I received the following e-mail as part of my follow-up for Salman’s interest in recycling.

The Dream Machine Recycle Rally is scheduled to continue past the end of the 2011 school year and straight into 2012. With this in mind, you are invited to apply and recycle to your heart's content. In fact, we have schools with summer programs and community support that plan to keep up their recycling well into the summer months and into the next school year.

This is a multi-year program and we are excited to have you in the program now and next school year as well, and we are working on program details for the 2011-2012 school year which should be announced in the near future. . At that point, all information will be on our website and we encourage you to check back there for updates or email us again at that time for more details. What we can suggest is that once you have full school administration authorization to apply for the Recycle Rally, that you apply so that we can begin the review process as soon as possible. This can at times be a lengthy process if you are not already service by our project partner, Waste Management. In addition, although all details are not publicly available, you might keep in mind that our next major contest has a requirement that a school apply by August 1st in order to participate.

The great thing about this program is that the purpose of this initiative is to increase recycling overall and with that in mind, all #1 PET and aluminum cans should scan for points. We have about 175,000 UPC codes of these types in our system. Products of different companies are included in the program. While participating in the program, if something of these material types does not earn points, sometimes that is due to new and promotional products with unique UPC codes or perhaps something we have not yet included in our system. We have a support team that can elaborate on this for participants as well as add UPCs into the system.

We look forward to your participation in the upcoming 2011/2012 school year, we’re expanding our rewards and contests platforms so that more schools have even more rewards opportunities and chances to win contest prizes as well as a modified method of processing the recyclables which promises to be more convenient for Recycle Rally participants.

Again, we thank you for your interest and look forward to working with Casady School in the future.

Regards,
The Dream Machine Recycle Rally Team

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Application for NAIS Challenge 20/20 2011-2012

Dear Carmen Clay,

This is confirmation that we have received your application for the 2011-2012 Challenge 20/20. Thank you for your interest in the program!

We will process all applications and notify schools of their partnerships by mid-September 2011.

Although NAIS will make every effort, we cannot guarantee we will be able to partner every school/group. If we cannot partner your school/group this year, we will attempt to give you priority for pairing in the following year, and you may request to participate as a non-partnered school/group in preparation for next year.

Beginning with this year, schools can collaborate with their partners through the newly launched Challenge 20/20 Portal at http://challenge2020.tiged.org/ . More information is available on the website at http://www.nais.org/go/challenge2020 under Collaborations.

If you have questions, please contact me at wheeler@nais.org or by phone at 202-973-9755.
To read more about the Challenge 20/20 program, visit
http://www.nais.org/go/challenge2020.

All the best,

Ioana Simona Suciu Wheeler

Associate Director of Global Initiatives

National Association of Independent Schools

Phone: 202-973-9755; Fax: 202-247-9694

Email: wheeler@nais.org



Thursday, August 4, 2011

Second Green Schools Training, Casady School, August 5th, 8:30 a.m.

Pictures and report from training forthcoming from Salman.  Casady teachers and students who participated in trainings were Mrs. Linn, Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Zesiger, and Mr. White from the Middle Division.  Students who participated were: Salman, Zainab, Katie, and alumni Emma and Alexander.

We will be following the leadership provided by environmental club and green team.  We will focus on recycling as the service-learning project and energy audits as the green team project in collaboration, we hope with the school in Turkey again this year.

Application to Challenge 20/20 2011-2012  submitted on August 8th
School Casady School


Student Group a club composed of 9-12 grade students with collaborations with MD and LD students

Global Problems 1: Global warming

2: Massive step-up in the fight against poverty

3: Peacekeeping, conflict prevention, combating terrorism

4: Water deficits

5: International labor and migration rules



Date Submitted 8/11/2011

Finalized Yes