1.2.1 Staff Awareness
The Staff Green Committee makes sure that Mount View's Green School objectives are integrated across all grade level and content teams, as well as at staff meetings and PTA meetings. Each year, members of the committee come from different grade level teams and different content teams. From 2015 to 2019, members have included:
- Susan Mako (G/T Resource Teacher)
- Cori Delitto (6th and 7th grade math teacher)
- Megan Remmel (8th grade English teacher)
- Kristen Strickler (Related Arts Spanish language teacher)
- Shelley Stout (7th grade science teacher/Technology Resource teacher)
- Gayle Gavazzi (6th grade science teacher)
- Jen Crayton (Related Arts technology education teacher)
- Anshu Randhawa (7th and 8th grade math teacher)
- Jacob Jennifer (6th grade English teacher)
- Chris Waggner (6th grade Special Education teacher)
During staff and team meetings, the Green Committee members give updates about the school's Green Goals for the year and get feedback on the environmental projects being designed by students.
Total Involvement Over 4 Years:
- 100% of teachers have attended at least one staff meeting with a Green School update per year
- 100% of teachers have attended at least two team meetings with a Green School update (grade level or content) per year
Documentation:
- A) screenshot of Green School updates at a Grade Level Team meeting
- B) screenshot of a Green School update at a Content meeting
- C) screenshots and photos from Green School updates at a Staff Meeting
- D) screenshot of Green School updates at a PTA meeting
1.2.2 Professional Development
Mount View makes a conscious effort to have staff of different disciplines and grades engage in professional development opportunities for environmental education. All teachers have completed an Indoor Air Quality web training provided by the county. In addition, at least one teacher from each grade level team and each content team has attended an additional EE workshop or training.
- Paula Bonner (Related Arts Team / Reading Team)
- Jen Crayton (Related Arts Team / Technology Education)
- Shelley Stout (7th Grade Team / Science Team)
- Terri Bollard (7th and 8th Grades Teams / English Team)
- Shannon Costello (Related Arts Team / French)
- Erich Raschid (6th Grade Team / Special Education Team)
- Cori Delitto (7th Grade Team / Math Team)
- Gayle Gavazzi (6th Grade Team / Science Team)
- Megan Remmel (8th Grade Team / English Team)
- Gail Sorenson (7th Grade Team / Math Team)
- Deb Finley (Media Specialist)
- Susan Mako (G/T Resource Teacher)
- Rick Hollenbeck (8th Grade Team / Math Team)
- Cathy Pearce (Related Arts Team / Family and Consumer Sciences)
- Jordan Dubbs (7th Grade Team / Social Studies)
Total Involvement Over 4 Years:
- 100% of teachers have completed one or more trainings/workshops in environmental education
- 28% of teachers have completed two or more trainings/workshops in environmental education
Documentation:
- A) Indoor Air Quality Training (annually/September2018)
- B) Native Plant Garden Presentation (October 2018)
- C) Extreme Weather Conference (November 2018)
- D) Oyster Gardening Training: (December 2015)
- E) BOB Basics: (January 2017)
- F) Composting Workshop (Spring 2017)
- G) Environmental Science Class (Spring 2017)
- H) School Grounds Workshop (August 2018)
- I) Farm To Table Workshop (August 2018)
- J) Monarch Butterfly Workshop (August 2016)
- K) MAEOE Green School Application Training (October 2018)
A) Indoor Air Quality Training Module
All staff, including all teachers, are required to take an "Indoor Environmental Quality" training module at the start of each school year. The module, created by HCPSS, provides information about indoor air quality, so that staff members can "identify and correct conditions that may have an impact on air quality." (ieq.hcpss.org)
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Screenshots showing proof of trainings.
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B) Native Plant Garden Presentation by Master Gardeners Pat Greenwald, a Master Gardener, provided a presentation on how growing native plants in the backyard benefits both the gardener and the environment, including the concept of “right plant, right place” and how to select from a variety of trees, shrubs, flowering perennials and more that will be perfectly at home in your yard. This presentation was designed to give staff an orientation to the kinds of plants that will be part of the Educational Native Plant Garden being planted on school property in April 2019.
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Pat Greenwald shares a slideshow about native plants. Teachers ended up staying late to ask extra questions of Pat!
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C) Weather to The Extreme Conference Mount View was selected to participate in an extreme weather conference at the Howard County Conservancy where a variety of research and public service institutions, along with private service companies, provided information about adapting to and surviving in extreme weather conditions. 2 teachers and 10 students served as "ambassadors" from MVMS at the conference with the purpose of taking the lessons they learned back to the other staff and students at the school.
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Learning from NOAA about how storms are created.
The session assignments for the day.
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Learning about weather reports from NOAA.
The agenda for the day.
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D) Oyster Gardening Training At a celebration for Green School certification for Howard County schools, the Oyster Gardeners of Dunlogin Middle School graciously offered to donate a bag of spat and train Mount View to start their own Oyster Gardening Program. Dunloggin staff members met MVMS at the docks of the Annapolis Maritime Museum, along with Bryan Gomes from The Oyster Recovery Partnership, and trained students, families, and staff how to conduct spat counts and test water quality.
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Pictures from the training (clockwise from upper left):
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E) BOB (Bringin' Oysters Back) Event
Students, families, and staff attended an educational event that explained the basics of oyster gardening and the value of oyster reefs for the health of the Bay. Based upon materials provided by The Oyster Recovery Partnership, attendees watched CBF videos, completed educational puzzles, and played a trivia game to demonstrate their knowledge of oyster gardening.
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The event is advertised to the community on our Green School website.
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F) Composting Workshop
One staff member attended a Composting Workshop sponsored by Carroll County. Master Gardeners explained how composting works and helped the attendees to learn how to use their bins.
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Mr. Hollenbeck with his composter.
A screenshot of the program that Mr. Hollenbeck chose.
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G) Environmental Science Classes
One staff member took two environmental science classes for his Masters of Arts in Education with a STEM focus at UMBC:
The classes taught about a variety of environmental issues, including how to develop unit plans to teach about monitoring water quality and the environmental impact of wildfires. The staff member used some of that coursework to design the student service learning project now being used in 7th grade social studies and science classes.
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Screenshots from parts of the lesson plan that Mr. Dubbs wrote as assignments for his courses.
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H) Using School Grounds For Education
At a countywide professional learning day, one staff member attended a work session to learn best practices for using school grounds to engage students in lessons outdoors. The work session was presented collaboratively by the Grounds Department of HCPSS and Howard County Parks And Recreation.
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The agenda for the county's Professional Learning Day.
The part of the agenda that shows Mr. Connor from HCPSS groundskeeping and Ms. Major from Parks And Recreation leading the session that Mrs. Crayton attended.
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I) Farm To Table
At the same countywide professional learning day as above, another staff member attended a different work session to learn about local farms and how to incorporate farm to table recipes into class lessons.
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A photo showing handouts from the session that Mrs. Pearce attended at the same PD Day and her notes from the session.
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J) Teaching And Learning With Monarch Butterflies
One staff member attended a 2 day workshop to gain a solid understanding of the life cycle of the monarch butterfly and the environmental stressors the species is encountering in order to incorporate lessons about the monarch butterfly into classes across content areas. In addition, the workshop explained how to raise and release monarchs in schoolyard habitats.
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The PD credit from that Mrs. Mako has showing her attendance at the Monarch Butterfly workshop.
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K) Green School Application Workshop
Staff members of the Green Committee for the 2018 - 2019 school year attended a workshop about how to complete the Green School application, offered by MAEOE in Howard County.
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The online registration for the workshop.
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