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Recycling is a big part of Fredericksburg Academy's Green Cup Challenge effort.
Members of Fredericksburg Academy's 'Green Team,' (from left) include Emily White, Colleen Hughes and Elizabeth Geyer. White and Hughes are dressed for Spirit Week. |
By RUSTY DENNEN
Saving energy, recycling and environmental awareness are not just academic exercises for students and faculty at Fredericksburg Academy.
Signs on paper-towel dispensers note that reducing waste saves trees. Plastic, glass, aluminum cans and paper products are collected and recycled. One parent donated funds for an innovative solar lighting system for a classroom.
Today, Fredericksburg Academy is holding a kick-off conference for the Green Cup Challenge. Organized by Green Schools Alliance, the national challenge helps schools cut energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
Students come up with practical solutions that classmates and the school can use, and monitor electricity use. The challenge runs from Jan. 25-Feb. 22.
The idea: "So the whole school is aware that you turn off those computers, that the heat should be on 65 degrees, to hopefully create lifelong habits," said school Finance Director Debra Lee-Rizzi, who helped organize the event.
About 30 students from five other private schools in the Chesapeake Bay region--Virginia Episcopal School, St. Stephen's-St. Agnes School, Christchurch School, North Cross School and Oldfields School--are coming to Fredericksburg Academy for the kickoff.
Students will delve into sessions such as "A Community Approach to Greening" and participate in an energy-conservation idea exchange. Richard Swindell, director of business operations at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, will discuss green building.
"My personal belief is that it's really important to teach children and ourselves the importance of conserving resources and using them wisely," Lee-Rizzi said.
The school last year started a green team "to examine what we were doing, and it blossomed from there," she said.
Eight students in grades nine through 12 are part of it.
"They're really passionate about being green and want to change the way we think here. During our first meeting, we went around the school looking at what we needed to recycle," said Lee-Rizzi.
Recycling containers now sit in the lunchroom, faculty lounges and common areas.
Even juice boxes used in the lower grades are recycled. Fourth-graders are heading up recycling efforts as part of their community service focus this year.
Discarded paper goes into a container out back for recycling; parents are encouraged to bring paper from home.
"Once it's full, they take it away and give us a little money," Lee-Rizzi said. That's used to fund other green projects.
Dara Dawson, a middle-school science teacher, got a grant from Target for an upcoming field trip to the National Building Museum in Washington.
Fredericksburg Academy has also begun a junior master gardener program.
A representative of the Association for Climate Education will be at the school on Jan. 27 for a climate-change assembly.
"We want to make a huge difference," Lee-Rizzi said, "and we want to share that with other schools. You start small and you build on that."
fredericksburgacademy.org greencupchallenge.netRusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
Founded in 1992, Fredericksburg Academy has about 450 students in preschool through grade 12 on 50 acres off Academy Drive.
