Northampton schools take sustainable lead
Film to benefit GREEN Teams
Monday, November 9, 20091
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NORTHAMPTON - Jackson Street School Principal Gwen Agna said when she saw the film "What's on Your Plate?" in her daughter's New York City apartment this summer, she immediately thought of bringing it to Northampton.
"I thought this could not be more perfect," said Agna, whose daughter, Nell Marantz, is the film's production manager. "This fits with what we're talking about in our schools."
"What's on Your Plate?" illustrates the symbolic relationship between a healthy planet, healthy food and healthy bodies. Agna said the film's teachings are consistent with those of the GREEN Teams in city schools, which seek to teach students to recycle, compost and garden. Created last year, the teams comprise students, teachers and parent volunteers.
Agna made a request to the film's director and her wish was granted.
"What's on Your Plate?" will be shown at the Academy of Music Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $3 a piece or $5 per family and can be purchased in advance in all Northampton schools, at the Academy of Music or online at www.academyofmusictheatre.com. All proceeds benefit the public schools' GREEN Teams and school gardens.
Directed by Catherine Gund, "What's on Your Plate?" is an education film about two middle school students who question their place in the food chain. They set out to farmers markets in surrounding New York and take a close look at food systems. They visit with food activists, new friends, storekeepers, their families and even talk to the viewers in their quest to understand what's on everybody's plates. They learn about the miles food travels, how it's prepared and what happens to the packaging afterwards. They also see how select programs help struggling farmers by providing consumers with affordable, locally grown food.
"It's just a very enjoyable way of understanding more about what's on our plates," Agna said. "It's such a kid-friendly, family-friendly film."
Northampton students are already embracing locally grown food in their GREEN Teams. At Jackson Street School, every Friday morning students sell fresh eggs in the school hallway. Susan Ebitz's fourth-grade class has watched eggs hatch in her classroom. When the chicks were big enough, Ebitz took them to her Otis farm, where they now lay the eggs students sell on Fridays. Students sell a dozen eggs for $3.50 and donate the money to the Northampton Survival Center and the Heifer Project, an international organization that buys livestock for agrarian cultures.
GREEN Teams coordinator Micki Darling said this year organizers are pursuing grants to help schools buy more locally grown and less processed food.
"Lots of parents and people are talking to us about it," Darling said.
This year the Northampton Education Foundation awarded the GREEN Teams a $15,000 grant. The money is used for waste management during school lunches, classroom presentations and composting, among other efforts. Karen Bouquillon, waste management supervisor for the DPW, said she is working with Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School to see if city schools can use a composting site on Smith Voke's property. Meanwhile, the DPW arranges a hauler to pick up biodegradable waste from Jackson Street School and bring it to a Belchertown farm.
While the Jackson Street School is the pilot for GREEN Team efforts, all Northampton schools participate in a milk carton recycle program in which students dump the milk, flatten the cartons and dispose of them in a recycle bin.
During "Zero Garbage Month" last November, students at the Jackson Street School recycled 200 milk cartons a day, drained 25 pounds of milk over three weeks and reduced the waste stream by 87 percent through vegetable waste compost, according to David Starr, founder of GREENnorthampton. Starr said he believes the students' example is one the whole city ought to follow.
"GREENnorthampton has the objective to divert 90 percent of the solid waste stream from the landfill over the next few years," Starr said. "That's not a pipe dream. We did that in three weeks at the Jackson Street School. We should be able to do that citywide. If we were to do that citywide we wouldn't have to talk about a landfill expansion... the landfill would be able to stay open until 2015."
Catherine Baum can be reached at cbaum@gazettenet.com.
Comments
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Glass, to be washed in an energy efficient machine.
I was only asking questions to address two points which I thought were missing. First, are they adding foodstuff to wastewater treatment plants? If one of them is reading this, as HTP fears, they can research how food down the drain (in this case milk) can add to the burden of cleaning water, and they can be even more informed about environmental issues. Second, part of being greener and more efficient is not just recycling, but reducing. The whole reduce, reuse, recycle motto. To reduce how many individual cartons are used would be a good thing. For example, we are so lazy as a nation that snack companies have to prepackage individual servings in their own bags and then wrap all those bags with more plastic. Instead of, buying a large bag and using reusable containers to take it to lunch. So, remembering back to high school math, many smaller milk containers will add up to more surface area of packing material than a larger container.
And, seriously, there are schools out there who serve beverages this way at the lunch tables. I wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. I can't agree more with David Starr's noting that the whole city should follow this example. Indeed, the whole country should.
to reader01
I cannot believe that you want them to use pitchers and cups for their milk. What kind of cups do you suggest, paper or plastic? Just another added expense or added labor.
I found the article very interesting. The youngsters, teachers and parents should be commended.
I was
just wondering. As with many articles here, I am left with more questions than answers. All schools and large institutions should be doing this, we know too much now to not let it be the norm.
GREAT WORK JACKSON STREET!
GREAT WORK JACKSON STREET! You should be so very proud of yourselves! What an amazing example you are setting. To Ms. Ebitz and her class: What a wonderful thing you are all doing! You are learning a great deal about where your food comes from (not just from the grocery store shelves!), and you are helping some very important charities as well. Nice job fourth graders! You are inspirational!
Wow
Reader01, I am not really surprised that you could read such an inspiring article like this and only pull out the only slightly negative aspect you could find. We are talking about the efforts of children here to better their environment and create less waste, which is much more than I can say for most adults I know. Do you realize what a "Debbie Downer" you sound like? This is not the effort of our school system, this is the effort of our young children! Bravo to them! Perhaps you should read the article again, and you will find a much more supportive comment to make to the students of Jackson Street. Criticism is OK, but don't you think it should be a bit more constructive? You are aware that many of them will read your comment aren't you?
I have to say that I don't think that 25 lbs. of left over milk over a 3 week period for an entire school is very much at all. I can't see that having students drink out of glasses would reduce that amount very much if at all. If anything I think that would encourage children to drink less milk. The milk is given to children in pre-measured amounts for a reason.
I have some very nice things to say to the kids at Jackson St. , but I think I will put them in their own post rather than tie them in with your negative words.
Dumping milk
Into what are they dumping the milk? It sounds like it must be a container of some sort, as the article provides a weight for the milk. But what is done with the milk then? Does it go down a drain? Not green at all to add foodstuff to the wastewater treatment plant. Or do they do something different with it?
If they really wanted to go green, they would use pitchers and cups. This is done in other places. That way the child can decide how much they want, and there is less wasting of milk.