New Buffalo High School/Middle School is Recognized as a Michigan Green School!
The Michigan Green School Program was established in 2006 and is given to
public and private schools for their environmental efforts and ecological practices. This
award shows that New Buffalo High School/Middle School has shown efforts to
encourage students to sustainably use resources, create a healthy ecology around us,
and focus on environmental education.
New Buffalo Envirothon designs, builds, and presents to the public solar heat
collectors designed to heat in the winter. This reduces the use of fossil fuels contributing
to global warming. Here at New Buffalo Area Schools we use a solar heat collector to
heat the maintenance garage which warms the equipment for easier engine starts. New
Buffalo Area Schools install and maintain energy efficient systems district wide. They
also cover a unit on renewable energy in the Envirothon course.
New Buffalo High School is participating in activism regarding the environment.
Envirothon is a class offered to students to teach them how the environment functions
and how to identify native and invasive organisms. Because of this class, students have
spent lots of time outside observing the environment, and are able to make a positive
impact in the surrounding area. Recently, students taking the class have been learning
about invasive species and how to control them. One of the biggest forms of activism
that New Buffalo High School involves in is taking students on field trips to help with
beach clean-up which lasts up to two days with two different class periods participating.
From May 10th-11th, Envirothon students picked up trash at our local beach. We
discovered that trash pickup takes an enormous amount of effort and time. Overall
Envirothon serves as a platform to promote environmental responsibilities and raises
awareness of ecological issues.
New Buffalo High School has many initiatives that promote reducing, reusing,
and recycling, ultimately teaching students the importance of reusing items. The school
has installed automatic water bottle fountains to reduce the number of plastic water
bottles being wasted. Plastic salad containers from the school lunch are saved to grow
plants to sell to collect funds for a cancer charity. Solar heat collectors are installed in
the maintenance building to heat the tractors and other ground equipment. These solar
heat collectors are made by recycling 169 pop cans donated by community members,
and the school offers a training session to teach the community members how to build
energy-saving solar heat collectors themselves. Recycled plastic, aluminum, and paper
are reused for other school based projects, including aluminum cans used in solar heat
collectors. The plastic salad containers and breakfast cups are used to grow plants
which we will sell to the community. Designated recycling bins, which middle school
volunteers collect weekly, are abundant throughout our classrooms and hallways.
Students are well aware of the importance of recycling and use these frequently.
New Buffalo Area Schools engage in green practices through reducing, recycling,
activism, energy conservation, and other Earth benefiting activities. These practices
help our school by being more environmentally proactive, engaging students to be more
self aware about the planet and the conditions of it. With helping students to use these
skills now, they will be able to use them later on in life as well as teach others how to
live sustainably, through reusing, reducing, and recycling.
Written by New Buffalo Envirothon Students
Coordinated by Richard Eberly
Edited by Keri Ann Chlystun