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Mare Island Technology Academy
(MIT) is a community-based nonprofit organization that operates Mare Island
Technology Academy Middle School, a public charter school in Solano County.
MIT participated in the Unified Education Strategy (UES) grant program to modify its current waste
management practices with the ultimate goal of becoming a service-learning
environmental school. With the UES grant, MIT set out to establish the
infrastructure for a unified approach to environmental education
instructional strategies and waste management practices through the
following program:
- Students conducted a waste audit to understand their school’s waste
stream in order to determine effective waste diversion practices that
will help conserve natural resources.
Additionally, MIT created an interdisciplinary, multifaceted set of
lessons to perform a comparative study of urban sanitation before and after
the 20th century, including the following:
- History-social science content standards were addressed through the
exploration of sanitary conditions as a contributing factor to the
spread of disease in regions representing centers of commerce, such as
the spread of the bubonic plague in medieval Europe and the spread of
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) throughout the world in the
21st Century.
- Students applied their knowledge of sanitation and issues associated
with the spread of disease to their own school site by conducting an
audit of their school’s waste stream.
- Data collected from the waste audit was analyzed and interpreted
through basic computations, measurements, percentages, and calculation
of volumes.
- Students acquired knowledge of scientific concepts regarding
renewable and nonrenewable natural resources.
- English-language arts standards were applied through various
lessons.
- Students made a Power Point slide show presentation to MIT’s Board
of Directors and recommended ways to improve the school’s infrastructure
regarding waste diversion practices.
MIT participated in year one of the UES grant program and intends to
sustain waste diversion efforts by continuing to incorporate sustainable
practices as part of the school culture. The school intends to serve as a
model conservation school for the City of Vallejo.
- The benefits of participating in this program were beyond academics.
As students learned waste management concepts, they began to think about
materials used on campus and the flow of materials off of the campus.
- Implementing reduction efforts was viewed by the school
administration as a means for reducing garbage and recycling related
costs.
- Students’ environmental stewardship increased in their daily living
at home and school.
- Participating in this program added to the school's identity as they
strive to be an "environmental" school.
- Establish a structure for communication and increase frequency of
meetings. A strong communication system provides the team opportunities
to discuss program information and coordinate program efforts.
- Ensure reading materials are grade-level appropriate.
- Data collected from the school’s waste audit showed discrete areas
for improving diversion. The administrators saw no obstacles in
fulfilling the student’s recommendations.
- Partnerships were formed with the local recycling center personnel,
a local farm, and, to some extent, the local waste hauling company. The
school plans to continue and extend these partnerships as MIT’s waste
diversion efforts continue.
- MIT’s school board has made waste diversion and conservation a
priority, and the administrators feel they have the board’s full
support. There are opportunities for energy, water and green building
conservation efforts to be implemented in future years.
Example of one lesson: 7th Grade, History and Social Science--Reading
material and activities were provided to students so that they could
describe how sanitary conditions in Medieval Europe contributed to the
spread of the Bubonic Plague.
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