Roots and Shoots Video

The perfect description of the Roots and Shoots philosophy by Jane Goodall herself.

Recycling Update

As you know, our school's recycling has been a main topic for this year's Roots and Shoots club. Our goal is to raise our total waste disposal from 35% recycling to 45-50% by the end of the school year in June. So far, we have spoken to the head of Facilities, a representative from our waste management company Sustainable Waste Management, the Middle School principal, and the Middle and High School Student Councils. We told the Student Councils about our findings on the cafeteria recycling and how the recycling is being contaminated by food waste. We decided that our best solution was to have students stand by the bins and help other students to choose the correct ones. This program will start next week and go on for a total of two weeks because that is about the right amount of time to create a habit. Our principal also spoke about not contaminating the recycling bins in a whole school assembly earlier in the week. Hopefully we can keep the recycling from becoming contaminated and raise awareness among students on how and why to recycle.

Pond Maintenance #2

Since it's getting warmer outside, we've been able to go down to the pond again. Unfortunately we have no pictures, but hopefully we can add some soon. Because of all the dry weather, the water level in the pond is very low. However, we still seemed to be able to find quite a few creatures when the science classes went pond dipping. We were very happy to see that the area we raked in the winter was still free of leaves and hopefully it will be until the fall.

We were advised not to rake leaves out of the bottom of the pond because there was a danger of disturbing newt eggs. Instead, we continued to rake leaves away from the sides of the pond to keep them from falling in. It's especially important to do this now that the water levels are so low because we don't want the pond to completely fill up and become more overgrown.