Mt Vernon Graham first graders study worms and their importance in this world

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Imagine 30 first graders and one bin of worms? Well, We Future Cycle has been hired to bring sustainability programs to the district. In addition to the hands on sorting in the lunchroom, we go into the classrooms to teach students about other environmental aspects. One of my personal favorite is going into a first grade class with a worm bin.

Students learn the importance of all life, not matter how little, no matter how weird. Did you know that worms breathe through their skin? And they are hermaphrodites?  And they don’t lay eggs, nor live babies, but cocoons containing two to three live worms.

Students learned about muscle functions and it is cutest to see them feel their own biceps flexing to understand the interaction of muscles to achieve movement.

Getting up close and dirty with a handful of worms allowed them to observe the muscle movements, check out size differences and stare intently at the translucent tail section of the worm to get a glimpse of the internal castings. (for the intrepid reader…castings are worm poop)

Graham’s first graders now know that our world would not be the same without worms.

By the end, every worm had a name.

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Rye Neck’s Daniel Warren Elementary Students Prove Kindergarteners Can Compost!

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One of the questions we frequently get asked is “How will Kindergarteners be able to compost in the lunchroom? Will they really be able to sort their lunch leftovers?”

Our resounding answer is alway “YES!,” and Daniel Warren Elementary School students proved that during their launch of the We Future Cycle program in October 2019.

Following the launch at F.E. Bellows in Rye Neck, which is a grade 3-5 school, We Future Cycle took on teaching the K-2 students at Daniel Warren about composting. Principal Tara Goldberg was very engaged in the launch. She is present during the entire 1 hr lunch period (1/2 hour for grade 2, 1/2hr for Kindergarten, and 1st grade is split up between the 2 lunch periods), which enabled her to optimize the flow of students as they came up to the 2 recycling & composting stations to sort their leftovers. We tried 3 set-ups before we arrived at a system which got the students through the lines most quickly! That is the right way to implement any innovative program like composting; launch with the best plan you have, but be flexible and optimize as time goes on.

The custodial team, led by Tom Tempesta, was enthusiastic about giving input to make the process seamless for them. The aides all jumped in to help; they immediately saw the benefit of recycling and composting and were eager to help the students sort their leftovers properly. Teachers take turns helping kids in the lunchroom – a practice which was common decades ago but is now uncommon in Westchester schools – which is a great way for educators to observe their students in a social environment and also help extend environmental education into their classrooms.

And, the parents, wow! We had parent volunteers from the start, and their dedication was impressive. We Future Cycle monitors the lunchroom stations for 2 weeks during the launch period, but then we leave the program in the hands of a champion at the school. The parents created their own monitoring schedule so they could continue to support the program when We Future Cycle moves on to launch other schools. And while we rely on administrators, aides, and custodians to keep the program operating on a daily basis, We Future Cycle checks in at each school twice per month to make sure everything is humming along smoothly.

The results at Daniel Warren were almost identical to the results at F.E. Bellow. 92% of the lunchroom waste was diverted into composting and recycling:

Liquid: 6lbs (10% of total weight)
Commingled (hard plastics and aluminum for recycling): 10lbs (16%)
Compost (food and paper): 34lbs (56%)
Trays (also will be composted): 6lbs (10%)
Trash: 5lbs (8%)
Total weight: 61lbs

Our only challenge is the many non-recyclable and ever-changing food service items. The Daniel Warren lunchroom has a cooler of water (which is preferable to single-use water bottles), but at one point there were 3 different cups next to the water cooler – one was a plastic recyclable cup, one was a paper compostable cup, and a third was a paper/plastic blend cup which would go in the trash! It is unnecessarily complicated when lunchrooms have an excessive number of single use items that must be sorted at the composting and recycling station, and we try to work with food service to make the packaging more simple.

Thank you to the Rye Neck PTSA for bringing this program to the Rye Neck elementary schools and for their financial and volunteer commitment to this initiative. We look forward to bringing the program to the MS/HS in the near future!

White Plains students examine organic and inorganic materials in the environment

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“How does bread interact with water?”  that was the question Mamaroneck Avenue School second graders had to answer in a slightly messy, hands-on science experiment. Followed up by “How does plastic interact with water?”.

Learning about organic and inorganic materials and how these interact in the environment with water and wind was the basis for We Future Cycle’s presentation to second graders.

Students learned about the problems related to littering. They learned that plastic does not break down in the environment and lasts forever and effects wild life as it enters the food chain.

Watching a video about how the street litter makes it through our rain water sewer systems into the ocean and just how big the plastic problem is was eye opening to them. Footage of divers swimming through a soup of floating garbage made them collectively groan. And seeing animals dying from ingesting plastic made this problem personal to them.

Each class started a lively discussion on how every student can be the solution to the problem. Each student had brilliant ideas and wrote about them in their daily workbook.

We Future Cycle’s motto is “Creating a generation of kids that care” and these MAS students are an inspiration to all.

Mt Vernon Hamilton first graders examine the role of worms in the environment

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Nothing is more fun than going into a classroom with a worm bin and teaching first graders about how every living being has a really important job to do.

Picture1The initial reactions of the little ones is a long drawn out “uuuhhhhh”, when I show them pictures of my worms and tell them how much I love them. They usually look at me with disbelief. And then they learn about all the fabulous things that only worms can do for us, and without that, our world would truly be in dire straits.

Students learned how worms breathe and upon learning that it is through their skin, they all rubbed their arm in disbelief. They learned about the function of muscles and it was very cute to watch them flex their biceps repeatedly, imitating contraction.

They learned about how much worms can eat, how they are the cleaning crew of our world. As they are translucent, one can actually observe the castings ( worm speak for “bathroom business number 2”) pass through their body and students learned how they are connected to healthy soils and plant life. I was blown away that all students knew that plants gave us oxygen (yes they used that word!) and food.

They learned how worms reproduced and all were very busy looking for cocoons and to identify what age a worm might have based on its size. BTW, just in case the intrepid reader wants to know. Worms have both male and female organs, but two worms still need to mate, and then both can have about 5 cocoons per week. Each cocoon contains  2-3 itsy bitsy live worms, that will stay for about 45 days in the cocoon until its time to hatch. It takes 6-10 weeks to grow to adulthood and they have a lifespan of 3-5 years (quite astonishingly long)

The lesson was capped with a wet paper towel in front of the kids, with a handful of worms on it to get up close and personal with them. Students learned that every living being has an important job to do and deserve our respect.

Mt Vernon students start bringing reusable water bottles to school, ditching single serve packaging

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We Future Cycle just implemented its recycling program in Graham Elementary School. Students learned about what happens to garbage and where it goes. They saw pictures of landfills and garbage filled lakes and coastal waters. They also learned about how personal choices in what we buy and what we consume make a difference, every single day.

I usually share with students my personal dislike for single serve juice pouches. The sandwiched material of plastic, aluminum foil and plastic is non-recyclable and such a terrible waste of infinitely valuable aluminum foil.

Most people do not think about the environmental cost of the materials they touch every day.

What does it take to make a water bottle, what does it take to make aluminum foil?

We are usually too busy to just get our days organized and it is so convenient to grab something single serve wrapped. And our language of casually saying “I am just going to throw this away”, as if there was a magic poof that made garbage disappear.

Mount Vernon students are learning that there is no away, when it comes to garbage. It goes either to a landfill or to the incinerator, neither is a good place for our environment, and both have lasting damaging effect to all communities around them.

On day two, after learning about how their actions count and make a difference, I was approached by a group of 4th graders proudly displaying their new reusable water bottles, and saying that -from now- they will make a difference every day !

It was very heart warming. Changing the heart of children is what it takes to make generational change.20191206_122417

New Rochelle Junior becomes Environmental Activist

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Meet Anthony Baker, a Junior at New Rochelle HS. He can remember that at some point in his elementary school times at Trinity elementary school, We Future Cycle got hired and eliminated Styrofoam trays from the schools and started the recycling program that is running in all schools. By now, it is normal behavior for students to walk up to the station and quickly sort their lunch waste into recyclable packaging, non recyclable materials and organic materials to be composted.

Anthony has recently decided to become more active and fight for even more change. He went to a recent Board of Education meeting to present the need to remove even more single use plastics from our lunchrooms.

Recently, he wrote this letter to his former elementary school principal. These are powerful words and I asked his permission to post his letter publicly.

Dear Mr. Hildebrand, 
My name is Anthony Baker, I am a junior at New Rochelle High School. You may or may not remember me, I spoke at the board of education meeting at Albert Leonard. I went to Trinity and I am extremely passionate about the environment.
I consider Trinity to be the birthplace of my passion, for it was there that I was taught how to recycle, how to reduce, and how to reuse. Trinity was the first place I was exposed to environmental issues and it was the first place that I became aware of the planet on which we live. I remember watching a brainpop video in my second grade CILA class about climate change; I remember feeling scared, and hopeless. 
I remember when I used to be served lunch on styrofoam trays in the Trinity cafeteria, I always used to use my plastic fork to poke holes in my tray. I realize now that this whole picture was just wrong. Now our cafeterias are void of styrofoam but this picture has two parts. Not just styrofoam but also plastic. Plastic is the cancer of our dying world. Our planet is infested with tumors of plastic, slowly choking her organs, day after day after day. I wonder how much longer our planet can even sustain itself with our plastic output. But this factor of fear, this image of destruction, this is what deters so many from action. We all fall into the closed mentality that it is a problem that is too big to fix; we feel guilty, we feel like victims. And at the worst, we are forced to recognize our own error. Our collective human error. We share a sense of mutual guilt with one another. We are afraid to be called out and we are afraid to call out. But now more than ever, we need to call out. We need to scream, we need to shout. 
When I spoke to the board of education about plastic output I spoke with genuine concern. I spoke because I was scared. I spoke because I saw something happening that was wrong. And I speak now because I continue to see a practice that is detrimental to ecological stability and the welfare of our human ecosystem.
This practice is the distribution of plastic utensils. I believe it is time that we at the very least consider the thought of a world in which New Rochelle Public Schools do not supply students with plastic utensils. A world where we use metal utensils not just at home, but at school too. 
This is not an ambitious idea, it is not a new idea, it is simply the way things used to be. It may seem outlandish to some, but that is simply because we have become accustomed to a world of single use and a world of disposability. 
With this, I am asking that you consider a motion for a plastic utensil free Trinity Elementary School. I believe that we have to start somewhere. No matter how small the change is, it is still change. And every step further into the direction of progress gives my generation a little more hope for our future. One school sets the precedent for another, 2 schools set the precedent for a district. A district sets the precedent for a county. And a county sets the precedent for a state. It is a domino effect that must begin somewhere, and it has already begun in a small town in Minnesota. I am hoping that you will be open to consider change. 
Styrofoam vanished because someone was brave enough to call for it to be removed. I am hoping the same can happen with plastic. 
In the end, I am simply a kid. A junior at New Rochelle High School. But I will not rest, I will not be silent until I see change. 
Sincerely,
Anthony Baker 
On behalf of my humanity 🌲

Mt Vernon Grimes school has only 8 lbs left for garbage, a 96% diversion rate

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Letter to Grimes School Parents:
We are so excited to share with you that Grimes Elementary School has taken a giant leap toward reducing our environmental footprint and is going green. The students are on the forefront of this exciting new project.
Last week, the children learned in class by class presentations that over 90% of their lunch waste is actually either compostable or recyclable, if it was just sorted out. They also learned about the problems around garbage and that there is no “away” on this earth, when we talk about “throwing something away”. They learned that Westchester’s garbage goes to the incinerator in Peekskill and gets burnt and creates air pollution.
Your children might share with you as their parents that most packaging made out of glass, all hard and rigid plastics, cartons and juice boxes and metals like soda can, aluminum foil and soup/coffee cans are fully recyclable if they are just placed into the correct bin. And to their biggest surprise, students learned that even their left over milk and left over food can be recycled. Only soft plastic such as chip bags, wrappers, plastic baggies, juice pouches are non recyclable and have to be discarded into the trash.
We Future Cycle, a 501 c3 not for profit company, was hired recently by the district to bring this program to all of Mt Vernon schools. The organisation has successfully implemented environmental education and recycling programs in many Westchester school districts . And Grimes is the 5th Mount Vernon school to implement the program.
Your children are now learning a new breakfast and lunch routine, and they took to it like fish to water. Instead of throwing all of their lunchwaste into one big garbage pail, thus generating over 15 bags of trash every single lunch, they are now walking up to one recycling station and are carefully emptying their containers and sorting them into recycling, compost or non-recyclable.
was implemented
daily garbage bags outside the school before the We Future Cycle program
On their first day, Grimes has reduced its garbage from 189 lbs down to a mere 8 lbs, a 96% reduction. Please join me in celebrating this wonderful achievement for our children and their future in a greener world.
This is AP Lucille Martir, easily holding up the single quarter bag of non recyclable garbage left, after the students sorted their waste for the first time.
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AP Lucille Martir easily holding the remaining 8 lbs of trash, a 96% reduction

 

 

 

 

 

Mt Vernon Graham school diverts 97% of its waste into compost and recycling

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Mount Vernon Graham school used to produce 15 bags of trash every day, and custodial staff had to bring each bag through a long underground tunnel , up some stairs to the street. That alone was a good work out.

20191205_141947Well, check out Dr McGregor , Principal of Graham school, lifting the remaining garbage with one arm.

Graham school just recently joined the We Future Cycle recycling program, the 6th of Mount Vernon schools and it diverted a record of 97% of its waste into compost and recycling. A mere 5 lbs were non recyclable soft plastics.

Students learned in auditorium and classroom presentations that there is no “away” in this world. They learned about garbage, pollution and how it all effects us right here, every day. Shocked faces looked at birds with their bellies full of plastic because people threw their waste carelessly away.

Sixth, 7th and 8th grade classes were together in the auditorium and it was so quiet one could hear a pin drop and collective moaning arose when they saw pictures of how plastic in the environment effects animals. I actually had a 7th grader come to me and hug me and thank me for showing her how she can make a difference. It was very heartwarming.

We Future Cycle is usually 2 weeks in the lunchroom actively helping the students to learn about what materials get diverted and we use that time to educate them even more. From day one, we had excited helpers and students that came to me to share how they are now making a difference every day.

Graham students are now the generation of kids that cares. Way to go!

Mt Vernon Lincoln 2nd graders study material interaction in the environment

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What happens to stuff when we throw it “away”?

Walking through the fictional example of sitting on a park bench, eating a sandwich and throwing the left over and the plastic bag into the environment, students learned about how organic and inorganic materials interact with water and wind.

Students learned about the detrimental effects of littering to our animal world, in particular the marine life. Students reacted with utter shock to learn that the litter on our streets goes unfiltered with the rain water into our oceans and there it is mistaken for food by marine life that will die a painful and slow death.

Students pledged to never litter and to be the change agents of their community to educate them about caring for this world.

A fun, but slightly, messy science experiment capped off the lesson and students were asked to write about 3 things they learned.

Mt Vernon Lincoln students truly learned that their actions matter, every single day.

F.E. Bellows in Rye Neck Launches We Future Cycle!

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We Future Cycle had a successful launch at F.E. Bellows Elementary School, which serves 3rd-5th graders, in September 2019.  The Rye Neck School District is one of the most enthusiastic and all-in communities in which we have launched the program! The PTSA spearheaded the introduction of We Future Cycle into the school district, and generously funded all components of the launch, including the weekly compost pick-up. Principal Mike Scarantino was an eager advocate for the program, as he had shown the documentary “Straws” to the 5th graders, educating them about the overuse of and destruction caused by single-use plastics. A number of students already compost at home, either in their backyards or through the Village’s residential food scrap program. Starting off with a mindful and supportive team makes the transition into lunchroom composting and recycling so much easier.

Head custodian Phil Reda and his team were very helpful in optimizing the lunchroom set-up. We started with one station, but as the kids were eager to run out to recess right after lunch, the custodial team asked about setting up a second station to make the sorting process even quicker – no problem at all! We also adjusted the bin order and bin size to make it easier for the custodial team to manage the recycling and composting at the end of the lunch periods. Each school is a little different, and the We Future Cycle team monitors the lunch periods at the school for 2 weeks after launch, giving everyone ample time to adjust and make any adjustments necessary to make the lunchroom flow smooth.

Aides Janice, Franka, Vilma, and Lisa, and the food service employees were all committed to making the system work as well. As in most school lunchrooms, students are given spork packets wrapped in plastic, ketchup packets, apple slices in packets, etc., and many are trashed without even being opened!  At Bellows, students were automatically given 2 ketchup packets when they had a meal, such as chicken fingers or burgers, where they might want ketchup. In these instances we collected unopened packets and found that 75 – yes, SEVENTY-FIVE – ketchup packets were being trashed without even being opened, in a school of about 350 students.  As well, on pizza day, students were allowed to go up to food service to get a second slice – but were required to take a second tray.

Both the aides and food service employees found these practices – distributing ketchup packets and requiring second trays for additional pizza slices – to be unnecessarily wasteful once they saw how much trash was being generated. The food service employees went to the food service director to ask if practices could change…and they did! Food service decided to switch to pump bottles once the ketchup and syrup packets ran out, and they disbanded the requirement for second trays for pizza. This demonstrates how important it is to talk to the folks “on the ground” in the lunchroom – they really see what is going on and how much waste is created every day. They have excellent suggestions about how to reduce food waste but are not always empowered to make such changes. The We Future Cycle program can help facilitate these discussions in schools to teach everyone to be more mindful about the substantial waste generated in schools every day.

As always, the results were incredible! The three grades generated 62.5 lbs of lunch leftovers in one day, and 92% of lunchroom leftovers were diverted into liquid, commingled recycling, and composting streams. The breakdown was as follows.
Liquid: 6lbs (10% of total weight)
Commingled (hard plastics and aluminum for recycling): 10lbs (16%)
Compost (food and paper): 37lbs (59%)
Trays (also will be composted): 4.5lbs (7%)
Trash: 5lbs (8%)

In addition to the lunchroom sorting, Principal Scarantino wanted to do composting in the hallways immediately. Students bring any snack leftovers out to the compost buckets in the hallway stations. This eliminates the need for liners in the trash cans in the classrooms, as there is no liquid or food waste in the classroom bins.

Lastly, the PTSA manages a garden at the school, and the students help keep it tidy. Now with the food scrap compost bins on site, the students are able to compost the yard waste as well by placing it in the bins!

We are so happy to have Bellows on board and look forward to our continued work in the Rye Neck Schools!

 

Ashley weighing the commingled plastics
Hallway Station with Compost