This fall the goals of SustainBLS are to:
- Increase recycling efforts in the school through school-wide staff and student education, infrastructure such as clearly marked bins located next to waste receptacles in all classrooms, commons, kitchen, and dining areas
- Decrease waste of resources through simple electricity and waste conservation measures
- Work with and meet student green teams at least 2 times a month starting in October
- Participate in Walk and Roll to school day on October 4th
You can find the list of the goals here.
Outdoor Learning and Garden Grants
A first step to developing any school garden is to create your team. Check out our School Garden Development Best Practices Guide (below) to get you started.
If you’re interested in installing a permanent outdoor school garden, please download and complete the school district volunteer app.
The Environmental Center’s Garden Grants are available to public and private Pre K – 12 schools and youth organizations in Central Oregon to start, expand, improve or support a new or existing garden or outdoor classroom. Gardens can be indoor or outdoor, edible and/or native/pollinator gardens. Grants are due on November 17th.
Find the app here and additional information here.
Trex Recycling Challenge
If your school is interested in joining the Trex Recycling challenge, sign up here. Through this challenge, you can collect plastic film from the teachers and students. You collect the film, weigh it and enter the weights on the website. You could win a Trex bench. Track your own weights and the winning BLS school will win a special prize for the green team. You can request bins for the plastic recycling once all signed up.
Bottle Drop Match
If you are already signed up to collect redeemables via bottle drop, The Bottle Drop is doing Holiday Give 2023. There are matching funds available between November 15 – December 2. Information on setting up Bottle Drop can be found here.
Reading the School Lunch Menu
It was requested to have some lesson to teach students about the school lunch menu. Here is a lesson to use with the green team or share with other staff. Any feedback is welcomed.