Meatless Mondays and a Trayless Dining Hall

SEA brought Meatless Monday to the Upper School to educate their community about how water is used in the production of various meats as well as the healthy and balanced alternatives that SAGE Dining Services provides. In addition, SEA worked with SAGE Dining Services to remove trays from use in the dining hall and educate the community as to the impact this has on decreasing water use.

STUDENT CLIMATE AND CONSERVATION CONGRESS (SC3)

SC3 brings together young environmental leaders from across the country to the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia to listen to speakers, to discuss issues and to work on action plans that they can take back to their school communities.

Amy Zhang '13 (back row second from right) and Caroline Resor '13 (front row first on the left) represented Potomac as student fellows at the 2011 Student Climate and Conservation Congress, sponsored by the Green School Alliance and the National Conservation Training Center.

Avery McCaffery '13 (second from the right) and Charlotte Ferenbach '13 (fourth from the right), represented The Potomac School as student fellows to the Inaugural 2009 Student Climate & Conservation Congress, sponsored by the Green School Alliance and the National Conservation Training Center in 2009.

North Campus Recycling

The Intermediate School has been coordinating recycling on the North Campus for years. Coinciding with the 2008 launch of the R3 Challenge, the IS Students for Environmental Action initiated a revamped recycling collection program for Intermediate, and Lower Schools. Every Friday, a group of IS students set aside their study hall books and fan out across Lower and Middle School to collect their recycling.

Battery Recycling

Middle School SEA has been busy helping recycling batteries for their division. Once the collection tube is full, they pick it up, make sure all the batteries are ready for shipping by taping both ends. Then the batteries are transferred to a shipping pail and sent off to Battery Solutions Inc., which then recycles them and sends SEA a certificate of completion.

Recycling

Middle School collects their own recycling out of the classrooms and delivers it to the main recycling collection point.

Terracycling

Started from the Student Climate and Conservation Congress of 2009, US SEA began a partnership with Terracycle, a company that upcycles certain products, or turns them back around into useful products.

US SEA members coordinate with members in Lower and Middle School to collect empty chip bags from their snack, which will be sent to Terracycle. The bags are upcycled into pencil holders and tote-bags, and the students earn points that eventually can be redeemed for the upcycled products.