SKYPE CONVERSATIONS: We had two skype brief conversations. We will set weekly skype teleconferencing on Thursdays from 7:30-7:45 to tend to priority business.
PRELIMINARY E-MAIL COMMUNICATION
Dear Mrs. Nazlier:
We are also very excited about working with you and exploring the Green School Pilot Program together. We will set SKYPE for 7:30a.m. on Thursday, October 7. We will only be able to talk for 15 minutes because our chapel service starts at 8:00. We will only have time for quick introductions.
The new website for Green Schools http://www.okgreenschools.org/ will be operational shortly. I am sending a copy of your e-mail to the coordinator of Green School for her to consider placing you in the listserv. We have not started with Green School yet, so it is perfect timing.
Salman came to us from Deer Creek, the only school in OKC to complete the green school first year pilot program. Teachers and students decide what their focus will be and develop a plan to make things happen. I observed what Salam and his classmates did and documented at a blog under Thursday, January 28, 2010 http://casadynaischallenge2020.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-03-07T06%3A05%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7 .
Last year, we were "an unofficial Green School" and we bought parts of the tool kit. Our work with the tool kit was limited to demonstrations of the tools to younger children. We tried to develop a partnership with our middle division, but we did not go much further than conversations.
This year, a child in the middle division wants to promote Green Schools with her classmates and she has a teacher in the middle division seeking more information to help her. We are very excited about not only starting the program in the Upper Division, but also mentoring children in the Middle Division.
The kit empowers energy audits following guidelines provided by Project Green Tree http://www.pltgreenschools.org/, http://www.pltgreenschools.org/content/plt-greenschools-investigations-0 . A team of experts then reviews students findings to provide needed credibility to the student’s research. Students then present their findings to the headmaster, board, faculty to inspire sustainable green change based on research.
Students also embark on a service-learning project of their choice. Last year, we promoted the increase usage of aluminum water bottles. We were not very successful.
Looking forward to your reply,
Carmen Clay
From: Seçil NAZLIER [mailto:snazlier@odtugvo.k12.tr]
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 6:53 AM
To: Clay, Carmen
Subject: Challenge 20/20
Dear Mrs. Clay and Dear Salman,
Hi! It is finally me, Secil NAZLIER (By the way I am Mrs. Nazlier :)). First of all I apologize for my delay in responding. We are also very excited about being partners with your school. I think that the topic Global Warming is okay for us. Actually, I'm the teacher leader of a student club which deals with different global problems and we have been studying on different issues including global warming and climate change for the last two semesters.
I’m glad to hear from you so quickly because I’m planning to complete most of our work in the first term of the year although NAIS assigned our school for the second term.
I was thinking to start with relating the warming trends of the past with the present to see if the difference was normal or definitely attributed to human activity in our city. Also, we still continue to research the global warming impacts on Turkey.
Salman mentioned about a green school pilot program and I looked up at the web site but I think I need more information about that program. If you could provide me some more information, I would be very pleased to work with you in this project. It seemed to me that another project called “Ecoschools”, which was held in our primary school during previous years resembles that pilot program. But we haven’t been in such a pilot program to make our high school greener so far.
Setting a Skype conversation seems okay for us but I meet with my club once a week on Thursdays. So unfortunately, we won’t be able to make this conversation on 5 th of October. There is approximately 8 hours of difference between our cities and our student club starts on 15:30 pm (7: 30 am for Oklahoma). If you can set up this conversation on any following Thursdays, it will be more convenient.
Me and my students are looking forward to meet you and collaborate on our work through the year. I hope it would be fruitful year for both of schools.
On our school web page, there are some information about our student club and its Challenge 20/20 works done so far but unfortunately it is in Turkish. We are still working on its English version. As soon as we complete it, I will provide you the link. Maybe your students will want to collaborate in constructing the web page.
Hear from you soon.
Secil NAZLIER
Biology Teacher
METU Developmental High School
From: Clay, Carmen
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 2:32 PM
To: 'snazlier@odtugvo.k12.tr'; 'flaminghot96@hotmail.com'; 'wheeler@nais.org'; Huestis, Peter; Bright, Chris; Pena, Matt
Cc: Delgrosso, Mark; Zesiger, Julieta; 'Carmen Clay'; Clay, Carmen
Subject: 20/20 Green School Challenge
Hello Mr. Nazlier,
My name is Salman, and I am a student attending Casady, currently as a freshman. I am interested in the problem of global warming. As an 8th grader, I attended a Green School Pilot Program School, and I want to reproduce that experience at my new high school, Casady.
I am starting with energy audits inside the buildings. I am, also, planning to do a carbon footprint survey of the entire high school. I am following the Green School Pilot Program guidelines. You can find information about the Oklahoma Green School Pilot Program at http://www.okgreenschools.org/ . This site will be updated next week, but it gives you an idea of what I did last year.
I would like you to consider working with me in global warming awareness instead of deforestation. Currently I am working with a friend of mine, and I will contact the environmental club to help my efforts. I have started to read the book 20/20, and have started to make a website for the environmental club.
Casady thanks you for joining with us in Challenge 20/20. We look forward with communicating with you and your students. This challenge will help our schools become more environment-friendly.
I am writing to you though my sponsor’s email, and my personal email is XXXXXXXXX
Salman
Dear Mr. Nazlier:
It is a pleasure to welcome you as our partner, hopefully on awareness of global warming as a path to global peace instead of deforestation. We already started our work and commitment to that challenge.
Looking forward to your reply,
Carmen Clay
Rainbolt Family Service-Learning Chair
Casady School
9500 North Pennsylvania
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73120
405-749-3103, cell: 405-520-1325, fax: 405-749-3214
www.casady.org
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Geology class debate on Global Warming
Resources
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html
From Mr. Craig Peck:
I do not have time to do complete research but there were a few things I could get my hands on quickly. I will try to answer some of the student questions and provide resources for the students to research.
I cannot address the health or social consequences.
I have attached 3 things that may be of interest.
1. The official American Association of petroleum geologists position paper.
2. The introduction and overview to a book published by AAPG -- Gerhard et al. (2001) pages 2 and 3, which diagram timescale of events may be useful.
3. The Spring 2007 Correlator. Pages 4 and 5 have some talking points that the students might be interested in.
Additional Web references:
Arctic Warming Report Flawed (this is not "climate-gate").
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2005/01jan/gerhard.cfm
This shows, among other things, carbon dioxide levels versus temperature on a geologic timescale.
http://www2.brevard.edu/reynoljh/
Jim Reynolds, a geology professor at Brevard College in North Carolina, believes that CO2 will cause climate change, making it COLDER.
I suspect that the best Web references for the students to use are www.aapg.org. My search of their sites using the Google search engine provided substantial hits.
http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&cof=AH:left%3BS:http://www.aapg.org/%3BL:http://www.aapg.org/images/head_pg2.gif%3BLH:55%3BLW:529%3BGIMP:%23cc0000%3B&domains=aapg.org%3Bsearchanddiscovery.com&sitesearch=aapg.org&q=Global+Warming&start=0&sa=N
Craig Peck
President and Chief Petrophysicist
Petro Isle, LLC
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html
From Mr. Craig Peck:
I do not have time to do complete research but there were a few things I could get my hands on quickly. I will try to answer some of the student questions and provide resources for the students to research.
I cannot address the health or social consequences.
I have attached 3 things that may be of interest.
1. The official American Association of petroleum geologists position paper.
2. The introduction and overview to a book published by AAPG -- Gerhard et al. (2001) pages 2 and 3, which diagram timescale of events may be useful.
3. The Spring 2007 Correlator. Pages 4 and 5 have some talking points that the students might be interested in.
Additional Web references:
Arctic Warming Report Flawed (this is not "climate-gate").
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2005/01jan/gerhard.cfm
This shows, among other things, carbon dioxide levels versus temperature on a geologic timescale.
http://www2.brevard.edu/reynoljh/
Jim Reynolds, a geology professor at Brevard College in North Carolina, believes that CO2 will cause climate change, making it COLDER.
I suspect that the best Web references for the students to use are www.aapg.org. My search of their sites using the Google search engine provided substantial hits.
http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&cof=AH:left%3BS:http://www.aapg.org/%3BL:http://www.aapg.org/images/head_pg2.gif%3BLH:55%3BLW:529%3BGIMP:%23cc0000%3B&domains=aapg.org%3Bsearchanddiscovery.com&sitesearch=aapg.org&q=Global+Warming&start=0&sa=N
Craig Peck
President and Chief Petrophysicist
Petro Isle, LLC
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Challenge 20/20 2009-2010 Reflection
Here is what happened at Casady School with a small number of Challenge 20/20 participants,
1. We did not have any contact with the Concordia International School Shanghai in China. We tried via e-mail several times with no response. In fact one of the Challenge 20/20 kids even wrote a letter in Chinese. The students from Millbrook School, New York started communication, but besides exchanging global warming videos nothing else happened. The Milbrook students did ask if they could send the awareness materials they were creating to our middle/elementary school students which inspired the Challenge 20/20 Casady kids to start brainstorming working with science teachers and 5th grade classes as well as to explore possibilities with our elementary school teachers. We tried several times to start a SKYPE conversation with the students from Millbrook, but they did not respond. I must also say that the small Challenge 20/20 Casady group also had its focus elsewhere and time just slipped away.
2. On behalf of the Challenge 20/20 team, I applied and we were accepted as the Oklahoma Pilot School by the Oklahoma Green Schools http://okgreenschools.org/ in June. In July, a new Principal arrived to Casady and decided that because we were undergoing a self-study for our ISAS 10 year evaluation, we did not not need to undertake other projects. We had to decline the opportunity to be the pilot school for the Oklahoma Green Schools. The Challenge 20/20 students liked the tenants of the Oklahoma Green Schools and embraced them "unofficially." They connected to the Oklahoma Green Schools resources and brought free recycling containers for plastics and cans. Due to their effort, we now recycle more than paper in the Upper Division. They also visited the elementary school that became the pilot school in Oklahoma City to learn about the "Green Schools Tool Kit."
Casady Challenge 20/20 spent most of the year selling aluminum water bottles and inspiring people to reduce their consumption of plastic water bottles via chapel presentations, using the YouTube video, The Garbage Patch, and connecting to the middle division science teachers and fifth grade classes. After they raised money to buy the tool kit, they promoted using a few tools during MLK Day. Since then, the Challenge 20/20 students have been brainstorming and implementing a partnership with our middle division 5th grade science teachers. On their behalf, I attended two trainings of the Green Schools Pilot Program, one on USE LESS STUFF, and another on preservation of our creeks and lakes by BLUE THUMB. All the information I gathered was provided to the Middle School Science teachers for their consideration.
During the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Challenge 20/20 received a donation of 10 Oklahoma trees from Up with Trees Tulsa through the Oklahoma Department of Forestry. They planted the trees in collaboration with the 5th grade classes. The Challenge 20/20 kids also brought alternative energy cars on campus to raise awareness of electric cars in the high school and 5th grade classes. As a result of the Challenge 20/20 interaction with the 5th grade science classes, a plastic recycling program started in the middle division. In the Lower Division, Oklahoma Green Schools information inspired the resurrection of their community garden. The community garden motivated a high school student, member of National Youth Advisory Board for the Alliance for A Healthier Generation- partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association that works to combat childhood obesity and promote a healthy lifestyle- to work with the after school program at the end of the year and with the high school next year. Challenge 20/20 is now carving end of the year time to SKYPE with Deer Creek Middle School to learn from their experience of using the Green Schools Tool Kit for audits of energy usage, water conservation,waste, recycling, environmental quality, and school climate.
The Challenge 20/20 kids also started to explore how older buildings could be refurbished to meet LEED standards. Our new headmaster is building the first silver LEED certified building on our campus. With Green Schools connections, the Challenge 20/20 brought a LEED architectural firm to answer the question, What is LEED? and promoted and implemented a field trip to their headquarters.
Find documentation of activities at the Challenge 20/20 2009-2010blog http://casadynaischallenge2020.blogspot.com/ and website http://web.mac.com/casadycrier/iWeb/Challenge%202020%20Website/Home/Home.html
1. We did not have any contact with the Concordia International School Shanghai in China. We tried via e-mail several times with no response. In fact one of the Challenge 20/20 kids even wrote a letter in Chinese. The students from Millbrook School, New York started communication, but besides exchanging global warming videos nothing else happened. The Milbrook students did ask if they could send the awareness materials they were creating to our middle/elementary school students which inspired the Challenge 20/20 Casady kids to start brainstorming working with science teachers and 5th grade classes as well as to explore possibilities with our elementary school teachers. We tried several times to start a SKYPE conversation with the students from Millbrook, but they did not respond. I must also say that the small Challenge 20/20 Casady group also had its focus elsewhere and time just slipped away.
2. On behalf of the Challenge 20/20 team, I applied and we were accepted as the Oklahoma Pilot School by the Oklahoma Green Schools http://okgreenschools.org/ in June. In July, a new Principal arrived to Casady and decided that because we were undergoing a self-study for our ISAS 10 year evaluation, we did not not need to undertake other projects. We had to decline the opportunity to be the pilot school for the Oklahoma Green Schools. The Challenge 20/20 students liked the tenants of the Oklahoma Green Schools and embraced them "unofficially." They connected to the Oklahoma Green Schools resources and brought free recycling containers for plastics and cans. Due to their effort, we now recycle more than paper in the Upper Division. They also visited the elementary school that became the pilot school in Oklahoma City to learn about the "Green Schools Tool Kit."
Casady Challenge 20/20 spent most of the year selling aluminum water bottles and inspiring people to reduce their consumption of plastic water bottles via chapel presentations, using the YouTube video, The Garbage Patch, and connecting to the middle division science teachers and fifth grade classes. After they raised money to buy the tool kit, they promoted using a few tools during MLK Day. Since then, the Challenge 20/20 students have been brainstorming and implementing a partnership with our middle division 5th grade science teachers. On their behalf, I attended two trainings of the Green Schools Pilot Program, one on USE LESS STUFF, and another on preservation of our creeks and lakes by BLUE THUMB. All the information I gathered was provided to the Middle School Science teachers for their consideration.
During the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Challenge 20/20 received a donation of 10 Oklahoma trees from Up with Trees Tulsa through the Oklahoma Department of Forestry. They planted the trees in collaboration with the 5th grade classes. The Challenge 20/20 kids also brought alternative energy cars on campus to raise awareness of electric cars in the high school and 5th grade classes. As a result of the Challenge 20/20 interaction with the 5th grade science classes, a plastic recycling program started in the middle division. In the Lower Division, Oklahoma Green Schools information inspired the resurrection of their community garden. The community garden motivated a high school student, member of National Youth Advisory Board for the Alliance for A Healthier Generation- partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association that works to combat childhood obesity and promote a healthy lifestyle- to work with the after school program at the end of the year and with the high school next year. Challenge 20/20 is now carving end of the year time to SKYPE with Deer Creek Middle School to learn from their experience of using the Green Schools Tool Kit for audits of energy usage, water conservation,waste, recycling, environmental quality, and school climate.
The Challenge 20/20 kids also started to explore how older buildings could be refurbished to meet LEED standards. Our new headmaster is building the first silver LEED certified building on our campus. With Green Schools connections, the Challenge 20/20 brought a LEED architectural firm to answer the question, What is LEED? and promoted and implemented a field trip to their headquarters.
Find documentation of activities at the Challenge 20/20 2009-2010blog http://casadynaischallenge2020.blogspot.com/ and website http://web.mac.com/casadycrier/iWeb/Challenge%202020%20Website/Home/Home.html
The Lower Division Community Garden and Scotie
Scotie wrote the following e-mail to Mrs. France, “This is Scotie and I'm a junior at Casady. Zac in the 4th grade is my little brother. I am a member of the National Youth Advisory Board for the Alliance for A Healthier Generation which is a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association that works to combat childhood obesity and promote a healthy lifestyle. As a member I get to carry out a service project in my community. Over the last few weeks I have noticed the garden growing outside of Calvert. I really want to be able to teach the kids in Lower School about leading healthy lives. A Community Garden at Casady provides an opportunity for kids to learn about healthy eating and get some exercise at the same time. I would love the opportunity to talk with you at your earliest convenience about my ideas. Would it be possible to teach some lessons with the after school kids because it would fit well with my schedule and they are already in Calvert. I understand school is almost over, and this is short notice, but I would be so excited if we could work this out!” Scotie was a master teacher to the children. He had snacks waiting for them. Then, he had a brainstorming session, played relevant games through questions and answers, gave them a handout to take home to see what were their eating habits. To end, he took them outside to play at the community garden identifying what they had planted. Before Scotie left, he gave the kids pins and a card where they could go online to find out more information about his program.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Setting UP SKYPE communication with Green MD School Deer Creek
We left message and sent e-mail to Mrs. Vandorn, Science Deer Creek teacher to set-up time to SKYPE with the Casady fifth grade!
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Planting trees
YAC Challenge 20/20, Environmental Club and 5th graders planted trees Native to Oklahoma. Thank you to the Oklahoma Forestry Services (Ms. Christina Stallings), the Apache Foundation, Tulsa Up with Trees, the National Arbor Day Foundation,and Mr. Fresonke and crew.
10 trees were planted at areas around the Upper and Middle Division. Trees will be taken care by Casady’s plant manager, Randy Fresonke and crew with sporadic assistance from YAC Challenge 20/20: Global Warming, and Casady Environmental Clubs
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