Lower School Students Campus Cleanup

At the weekly Green Ambassadors meeting, lower school teachers David Nagel and Lisa Martin along with students spent time cleaning up the campus after the big thaw. The green ambassadors program is a school wide club with a three prong mission for environmental advocacy, education, and experiences outdoors.

Sarah Smith Presents at Green Design Saves Green Event

During spring break, Director of Science Research, Upper School Biology teacher, and Preserve Manager Sarah Smith presented at Green Design Saves Green, a workshop that was held at Germantown Academy on March 26 for public and private larger property owners and managers.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) and Schuylkill Action Network (SAN) organized and sponsored the conference in which a number of local professionals presented, including Ms. Smith and Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC representative Carolyn Campbell, wife of Middle School Dean of Students Jonas Jeswald.

During the presentation portion of the workshop in the Honickman Auditorium, the audience listened to several different organizations present case studies of ecological restoration on various types of properties: residential developments, corporate parks, preserved spaces and schools. By listening to these case studies, other land owners, land managers, and industry professionals were able to learn about new techniques that have been successfully implemented in order to mitigate stormwater issues. Attendees also took a tour, led by Ms. Smith and Ms. Campbell, of Germantown Academy’s numerous green features, including the gray water system, Green Roof, Academic Courtyard, rain gardens, Wissahickon Creek and preserved wetlands.

“The goal of the workshop was to present and discuss landscape techniques to help improve environmental sustainability on a property (mainly related to stormwater management), while saving money and improving both stewardship practices and community relations,” said Ms. Smith. “It was a great way to showcase what we are doing at Germantown Academy on a daily basis.”

Kindergarten Winter Walk on The Woods Trails

Prior to spring break (which given the cold weather felt a whole lot more like winter break 2) GA's kindergarten classes went on a brisk walk on the Woods Trail with Lower School science teacher Lisa Martin.

Sweet Honey at Last

At long last, in late autumn,  upper school students saw the fruits of laboring over and tending to the bee hives in GA's apiary. Located on the Green Roof, The Apiary has been a focal point of our nature program since the since students took residence in the new buildings in 2011. Lily Horner GA class of 2015 reflects upon her work as an emerging Beekeeper.

"I had been in Apiary Club for a year and a half before we harvested any honey. After waiting that long and doing a lot of work, I felt that extracting honey was the apex of my “career” as a beekeeper. Since Apiary Club isn’t a club that meets during the rotation or has any specific meeting times, I was worried that no one would come to be apart of this historic moment, but thankfully five people came (a huge draw for such a small club), and we all worked hard and had fun collecting the honey. We had some difficulty getting the equipment to work according to the directions at first, but once we started going with the extractor we didn’t stop. Taking turns to spin the handle and hold the extractor so that it didn’t fall off the table, we all were involved in the extraction process. No one stood idly by while one person did the work, nor did all of the students sit and watch while the teachers did the actual work. When you think of beekeeping, you think of one person standing around a swarm of bees, but in actuality beekeeping at GA has been a great communal experience, and it has taught me about collaboration and giving back to the environment."

Middle School Project Based Learning in the Academic Courtyard and Preserve

Middle School students have been tending beds in the Academic Courtyard as part of their science curriculum. Teachers Maura Saurman, Jim DiFranco, and Kate Cassidy developed The MilkWeed Project as a key feature of their program asking the question Who can grow the healthiest milkweed for transplant into The Preserve. A project based learning initiative (PBL), the teachers have retooled their current thematic curriculum to include one PBL unit per grade per year.  The Milkweed Project has been developed for the units on energy based on the essential question, where does energy go? Faculty were looking to include a way for students to not just follow the cycles of energy by working in the Academic Courtyard, but find an authentic way for it to be applicable to GA’s preserve.

When asked why The Milk Weed project is a game changer for teaching and learning in the sciences faculty reported that students have practice at applying concepts they learned throughout the year and use them to make a difference. Collaboration with peers and faculty in person, through a dedicated space in an online classroom space (VLE) and across networks using shared Google Docs has also been a game changer for students. Authentic inquiry combined with engineering and design, alternative assessments and team work has been a motivating factor for student success and has contributed greatly to high levels of students engagement.

What We Are Watching

In the highly celebrated documentary Your Environmental Road Trip, three friends hit the road to explore every state in America in search of the extraordinary innovators and citizens who are tackling humanity's greatest environmental crises. This film has been called "a groundbreaking adventure and a celebration of the American spirit in the face of adversity - a thought-provoking, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious, documentary about the courageous and creative individuals, groups, businesses and leaders of this country who are tackling the greatest environmental threats in history. " Called into action by the ever-increasing threats of planetary catastrophe (from climate change to toxic pollution, from water scarcity to habitat destruction), three adventurers supend their lives, pool their collective life-savings, and set off on a first-of-its-kind, 50-state, year-long journey of discovery to personalize sustainability and to answer a critical question: ARE WE DOOMED?

Kindergarten Welcomes Community Partnership School for a Nature Walk

GA kindergarten enjoyed an autumn nature walk and hands-on activity with The Community Partnership School CPS) Kindergarten class. Students conducted a collaborative leaf-packing experiment at the Wissahickon Creek designed in two parts.  The first taking place at the creek on the day of their outing. The second, occurring three weeks later, when students opened and investigated the small aquatic creatures that made a home inside the leaf pack. The students also collected souvenirs and designed and created a clay sculpture incorporating these found objects from nature.