School District: Northshore
School Location: Bothell
Began participating in the Green Schools Program: January 2012

Level One of the Green Schools Program: Achieved in May 2013

Waste reduction and recycling (level one)

• Woodin Elementary increased its recycling rate from 38 percent to 47 percent in 2012-13.
• Teachers reviewed recycling rules with their students at the beginning of the school year and after school breaks. As a classroom job, students took turns emptying the recycling containers.
• The student Green Team met during recess and worked to promote recycling practices.
• Custodians Pat Connors and Sami Rajendra supported the school’s recycling efforts by emptying hallway recycling containers and monitoring outdoor collection containers.
• The school participated in a King County waste reduction and recycling assembly in October 2012, and third through sixth-grade students received classroom workshops. 
• Teacher Christine Ro assigned two classroom jobs: “Environmentalist,” who empties the classroom recycling container; and “Light Saver;” who turns off lamps and lights when leaving the classroom.
• Ms. Ro celebrated Earth Day with her third graders by creating a recycled paper art project and practicing math on desks with shaving cream instead of paper.
• Teacher Kirsten Jackson taught a healthy planet unit to her second graders.
• Teacher Leslie Connor assigned a dishwasher classroom job to wash durable silverware for her classroom. Students used cloth napkins and towels to reduce paper waste.
• To reduce paper copies, teachers printed double-sided copies, made half-sheet assignments, used white boards and document cameras, and asked students to take notes in their spiral notebooks.
• Students created art with old magazines and scrap paper used on one side.
• Instead of printing paper newsletters and volunteer sign-up forms, the PTA placed this information on the school website. 
• The school newsletter and PTA newsletter regularly included articles about Woodin’s Green School initiatives and garden successes.
• At a recycled craft station at the annual all-school field day, students created milk carton boats and colorful garden decorations using sticks and repurposed paint.
• To reduce organic waste from daily lunches, several classrooms took turns collecting food scraps to add to the school’s four on-site worm bins. The Garden Club used the compost from the worm bins to fertilize the school gardens.

Other environmental education

• Woodin Elementary School maintained a vegetable garden, a butterfly garden, a “Dia de los Muertos” garden, a colonial garden and a Pacific Northwest coastal native plant garden.
• Students participated in a Garden Club during recess and helped to dig and maintain the gardens. Their first strawberry plant sale was held in 2013.
• Each spring, classes have planted seeds and grown plants to add to the school gardens.  Kindergarteners have planted edible seeds in honor of Earth Day and celebrated at the end of the school year by making a salad with the harvest.
• During annual back to school work days, volunteers have removed invasive plant species from school grounds.

Awards

• Parent volunteer Angela Johnson received a King County Earth Hero at School award in April 2011.

For more information about the school’s conservation achievements and participation in the Green Schools Program, contact:

Angela Johnson, parent volunteer
greenteamwoodin@gmail.com

Jill Crivello, principal
jcrivello@nsd.org