Sustainability in the School System

In an email reply to @MCiscart re: bringing composting into the school system, I suggested these resources:


That's great you're planning on bringing composting into the school! Definitely check out what Brooklyn Academy of Science & the Environment has done - they have an entire high school class on sustainable agriculture, and even grow their own crops, pick them, and prepare them in meals. Their website is http://basehighschool.net/. They have a really excellent program, I encourage you to contact someone from that school and ask about their sustainable ag class, maybe you can get some ideas from them. Also you can get info on composting from East New York Farms (http://www.eastnewyorkfarms.org/).

And not to advertise or anything, but just to put it out there...Another thing you could do is look into The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education (http://sustainabilityed.org/) - they work with schools to integrate sustainability into the curriculum. They even have a workshop coming up for teachers, curriculum designers, administrators, grade level teams - Monday July 20 to Friday July 24 (9am-4pm), with Sunday July 19th being a pre-req introduction to sustainability (9am-3pm) at the Cloud Institute, 307 7th Ave, Suite 1201, NY NY 10001. The M-F fee is $750 and Sunday is $100. Questions can be directed to Program Manager, Marie-Claire Munnelly at marie-claire@cloudinstitute.org or (212) 645-9931 ext. 822.

I'd love to hear your ideas; if you need more help contacting anyone let me know; I'm pretty well connected in NYC ;)

Kelly

FYI - One other thought: there is a petition to bring back composting to NYC - yes, they have stopped funding for it! :( The petition is here.
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Message from MCiscart:
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I maybe looking for some help on bringing composting program to public schools and am looking for science teachers or any teacher who believe in going green and educating our future adults not to go green but to make informed decisions. Currently working with a head start program in Jersey that's going green with composting. If you like to hear more on my plans and thoughts let me know. I can use any and all constructive criticism.

Thanks,
MCiscart

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6/3/09
Since this is a post on "sustainability in the food system" I thought I'd add some information I learned recently regarding the NYC Department of Education's Office of SchoolFood, in relation to farm-to-school initiatives. I spoke with Bill Doherty, williamd@schools.nyc.gov, 718-707-4478, and he said he is the go-to person if there are any schools interested in pursuing farm-to-school programs within the NYC school system, as all of the food has to come through SchoolFood. If any schools are interested, just let him know and he will find farms to partner with etc. and set it up.