Environmental Stewardship at Potomac

Since 1904 The Potomac School has cultivated an intimate connection between our students and nature. Our 90-acre campus, replete with woods, streams, meadows, and ponds, provides a rare and wonderful setting for each student’s educational journey. Our students, faculty, and parents value this long-term relationship with the land and are dedicated to preserve and enhance its resources.

On Campus Initiatives

Environmental stewardship at Potomac takes on a variety of forms. Our science classes in Lower and Middle School develop the interest and habit of observing nature on our campus, the first step in becoming aware of the richness of our environment. Our eighth graders partner with scientists as our campus has become a Smithsonian biodiversity monitoring site. Our Intermediate School continues a decade-long recycling program, recently expanded by our Upper School environment club, Students for Environmental Action (SEA). This group has raised money to plant trees, worked with our caterers to make our Upper School dining room more eco-friendly, and built a dam to improve the water quality of our pond.

To help coordinate and enhance our stewardship efforts, parent volunteers have started an Environmental Stewardship Committee to encourage our community to think more comprehensively about the ways we conserve resources and impact our environment.

Some of the goals of this group are to:

• Stimulate use of the campus landscape by teachers and students
• Support School initiatives to ensure coherency in the campus landscape, including plantings, benches, and trash receptacles
• Provide resources and information on best practices of land use and horticulture.