R3 Earth Challenge

R3 Earth Challenge: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The Potomac School community is launching the R3 Earth Challenge to reduce, reuse, and recycle. All of us have pledged to work towards reducing our energy consumption and improving our school environment during our 15-day Challenge April 7 – 22, 2008. We will kick off the R3 challenge April 2, with a student-created video on energy conservation, waste reduction and recycling shown in each Division Assembly. The goals of the R3 Challenge will be presented, demonstrating how our School can reduce its environmental impact and how each one of us as individuals can contribute.

Our Challenge

  1. Reduce electricity. We’ll make sure all lights are off when we’re not using them. We will monitor our meters and see what kind of difference we can make. Students will ask their families to turn the lights off at home as well and try to observe a power hour (lights off) every day at home.
  2. Reuse whatever we can. We will try to reduce the amount of trash that comes with our lunches and try to fit all our lunch waste in smaller bins. Students will take their own plastic containers to lunch each day.
  3. Recycle even more than we do now. We will work with Turtle Wings, a company that collects and recycles electronic waste, to collect electronic waste from school and home, including old or broken TVs, cell phones, ipods, PDAs, CDs, DVDs, computers, laptops, cords, etc. and recycle them responsibly. Check out the Turtle Wings site at www.turtlewings.com for details about what they can accept.

Other R3 Activities

  • Distinguished Speakers Series features noted environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr. at a presentation April 10 at 9:45 am
  • Farmers Market Bake Sale April 22 featuring healthy items
  • Weekly environmental tips and ideas presented in Paw Prints
  • Trash Cube Sculpture: a three dimensional representation of what does not belong in the woods. Students and faculty will attach any trash they find on our campus to this blue and orange armature in front of the Upper School.
  • Stewardship Day: Saturday, April 19, 2008
  • Celebration of R3 Challenge: Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, 2008