How much of a difference can one teacher make? When it comes to environmental sustainability, Wendy Turner, a second grade teacher at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School, shows that one teacher can inspire the “greening” of a whole school. Turner’s leadership sparked enthusiastic support and hard work from her peers, students, parents and the school’s administration.
Students will remember Abington Friends as a school where “place-based” education wasn’t just theory. Place-based education binds organizations and schools to collaborate on local causes. Over the years, AFS students worked with neighboring non-profits to become community stewards. Lower school science teacher, Rosanne Mistretta, stands at the hub of the school’s community partnerships. Walk into her classroom and you will see structures made from twigs and seeds when students built fairy houses, observational drawings and photos when they planted trees along a stream, and germinating seeds to be used by a local farm. All of these exemplify work students have done with community partners.
Springside Chestnut Hill Academy (SCH) was recently named a bronze-level Eco-School by the National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA program which promotes environmental education, conserving natural resources and “greening” physical structures and grounds. With this award, SCH was recognized for its “healthy living” commitment to getting students outdoors and encouraging physical activity—factors that enhance students’ emotional well-being. Betty Ann Fish, SCH’s Chair of the Physical Education Department and a nationally recognized PE teacher, led the Eco Schools “Healthy Living” initiative with the help of the school’s Green Task Force, sustainability consultants Mary Ann Boyer and Anne Sudduth, and the school community.
