The two day summer teachers’ workshop was held at the Wrigley Building on June 10th and 11th. Over twenty teachers from our partner schools attended the workshop, with guest speakers from the City of Phoenix on the Reimagine Phoenix, Transforming Trash Into Resources Project, the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives on a local school district’s waste stream reduction project, and Harvest for Humanity on community engagement practices.

The workshop was organized by the S4 program’s three C’s approach, with sessions organized under the headings of Curriculum, Campus and Community. New learning videos produced by the 2013-2014 Fellows were shown and are now available on our website under Learn More, Sustainability Concepts in 5 Minutes.

The Sustainable Schools program has been working with Arizona Forward’s Canalscape Committee and four local schools over the last year on visioning the future for a stretch of the Grand Canal between Central Avenue and 7^th Street. The four schools that surround this stretch of the Grand Canal include St. Francis Xavier Elementary School, Central High School, Brophy College Preparatory School and Xavier College Preparatory School.

The goal of the educational project is for this section of the Grand Canal to become a shared outdoor learning center and “outdoor classroom” for the four partner schools which border the canal. Three student teams have been working since last August on their sustainability-themed projects for the Canal with  one  team working on environmental art along canal, another team focusing on landscape systems and the third focusing on bridging and connectivity between schools across the canal.  Each student team manned a booth at the March 1^st event to showcase their work and visions!

Video: Courtesy of Vianka Villa – Multimedia Reporter, the State Press

Our Fellows supported a full range of No Impact Week activities at the Tempe Union High School District high schools that kicked off on November 18th this year. Activities ranged from a big Food and Water themed day at Desert Vista, to a water taste test and celebration of sprouting seeds and garden framing work at Tempe High School. Students worked at Mountain Pointe High School to paint concrete blocks for their raised planting beds with the school’s colors. No Impact Week activities are playing an increasingly important part in our Fellow’s fall work with their schools, with a new theme energizing every day of the week.

All five of our first year Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools Fellows were involved in the US Green Building Council (USGBC) sponsored Green Apple Day of Service with events across the Tempe Union High School District on Friday, September 27th and Saturday, September 28th. Activities included: recycling activism at Desert Vista by painting trash cans and generating a plan for the future, engaging students and teachers in improving the greenhouse and garden space at Mountain Pointe, performing an energy audit at Compadre, urban heat island investigations at Marcos de Niza, a long awaited garden creation at Tempe High and a solar energy cafe at McClintock High School. Both students and parents at McClintock learned how the school’s solar living lab works and talked to industry professionals about what the technologies offer on Friday. They were initially charged with the question, “which one of these is made by solar photovoltaic technology versus solar thermal technology: S’mores, hot dogs, a cell phone charger in an Altoids can or cookies?” The event provided them with the delicious answer! If you want to learn how to make a cell phone charger with your students, check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc2egImaByY

Over three days from June 18^th to June 20^th, our new cohort of Sustainable Schools Fellows assisted with facilitation of the third annual summer core sustainability teacher workshops. The first day of the workshop session was located at the Compadre High School north campus within the Tempe Union High School District (TUHSD). The first day’s agenda included a wide range of speakers including Dan O’Neil and Kelly Saunders from the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiative and Alison Smith of Chevron Energy Solutions demoed an energy lesson activity with the group. The second two days of focused sustainability project planning work was hosted at ASU’s SkySong facility.  We followed up after a month’s time with the final SkySong workshop on July 29^th. During this morning work session, our Fellow placement strategy for the 2013-2014 cohort year was announced and we heard from the teaching teams and their assigned Fellows on exciting strategies and community partnership concepts for sustainability projects.  Everyone left the workshop with great energy, a growing sense of camaraderie and formative project plans for the new academic year.