Unified Education Strategy Grants

Los Angeles Unified School District Open Charter School

On this page you will find...

• Grantee Information
• Diversion Successes
• Lessons Created
• Partnerships
• Program Contacts

Grantee Information

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety (OEHS) applied for a Unified Education Strategy (UES) grant on behalf of the school district. OEHS took the lead on this grant because they are responsible for the management of waste for the entire district. Additionally, staff at OEHS knew of efforts in the schools to combine gardens, composting, and vermicomposting with their federally funded nutrition education program. OEHS recognized that many ties to curriculum could be made using these existing school gardens.

Los Angeles USD has adopted policies for waste reduction and recycling regarding construction and demolition wastes and for the procurement of environmentally preferred products. OEHS determined that using the UES grant as a pilot at Open Charter School to implement standards-based, student-led waste audits and to implement waste reduction and diversion programs would be the best way to build a model for other schools in the district.

The teachers at Open Charter School used the grant funds to support professional development time in order to craft standards-based lessons. These lessons provided the necessary groundwork for students to conduct their own waste audits. Once the students characterized their school’s waste stream, they were able to determine what activities would be most effective in diverting waste at their school. School lunch waste became their focus, with a plan to have students separate their waste into three categories:

• Organic waste (non-meat) to make compost in the school garden.
• Beverage containers.
• Unsoiled cardboard food trays.

The students also conducted a trial food waste diversion strategy that did not require the separation of food wastes. This anaerobic, containerized method was based on a fermentation process called Bokashi. It is hoped that this method would streamline the lunchtime waste diversion program as well as increase the school’s overall diversion rate.

The use of the campus needs assessment (CNA, Adobe PDF, 52 KB), whereby students audited the waste stream at their school, ensured the integration of standards-based learning with waste diversion practices. The ultimate goals of this grant were to implement an ongoing school lunch diversion program, create a "waste audit how-to" video, produce and document an environmental play, and share lesson plans with other interested schools.

Diversion Successes

OEHS has worked closely over the years with CIWMB Office of Local Assistance staff and with many Los Angeles USD schools to design and implement waste reduction and diversion programs. Ongoing diversion programs include:

• Paper recycling and toner cartridge recycling at all school sites.
• Beverage container recycling for schools that requested this service.
• Participation (since 2001) in the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, which focuses on sustainable building criteria for new and reconstructed school sites.

Lessons Created

Curriculum goals that were achieved with the campus needs assessment (Adobe PDF, 52 KB) for grade level 5 include:

• Use of the program as a vehicle to provide real life context and meaning to the fifth grade math, language arts, and science standards.
• Promoting student development and use of oral skills, written language skills, and math skills including graphing. The CNA provides a strong basis for science investigation skills such as problem solving. For example, the students designed the waste audit, then afterwards worked together to identify problems and solutions to those problems.
• This program provided the opportunity to extend the systems thinking awareness that Open Charter School began in earlier years, enhancing students' critical thinking ability and their understanding that everything is connected to everything else.
• The students' Service Learning project included service to their school campus, in addition to possible monitoring of the waste at home, and eventual extension into their surrounding community.

Most importantly, the program met the district’s needs to attain standards-based education.

Partnerships

• Los Angeles Unified School District, Office of Environmental Health & Safety
• Barney Saltzber, children’s author and illustrator

Program Contacts

UES Grants Home

Last updated: December 30, 2009