Provided/VECC celebrated Earth Week, April 22-26 by planting trees in the schoolyard.
By NANETTE LoBIONDO GALLOWAY
VENTNOR – The city’s schools celebrated Earth Week April 22-26 but the effort to save the Earth is turning into a year-round endeavor thanks to the work of the VECC Green Team.
Under the guidance of eighth grade Life Sciences teacher Michael Capizola, students, staff and administrators have joined the effort to create a more sustainable environment, not only in the schools but also in the community.
During the week, students dressed up for the occasion, wearing outfits with flowers, leaves and snowflakes, or anything green. On Thursday, they wore upcycled, borrowed or second-hand clothing, and on Friday they will wear blue in celebration of the Blue Planet. They were encouraged to walk or bike to school and spend Saturday outdoors in nature.
“We’re promoting different things students can do this year to help the Earth and make it part of their everyday lives,” Capizola said.
The team has registered for the statewide Sustainable Jersey in Schools program but has not completed enough tasks to obtain certification this year. But the effort will continue and hopefully, the team will be able to achieve the coveted designation.
“We’ll work on it over the summer,” he said.
Students in the Middle School have embraced several efforts to become more Earth-friendly, including participating in monthly beach cleanups, which gets them involved in a fun way, Capizola said.
VECC students participate in a beach cleanup with their teacher Michael Capizola.
“They go crazy for it,” he said. “We go all around the beaches in Ventnor and the kids suggest where we should go next. We go out after school on the third Thursday every month with buckets and we collect trash we find on the beach.”
Capizola, 30, who has been teaching at the VECC for the last three years after working in Las Vegas and Estell Manor, said the students weigh the trash after each session and fill out data sheets for the Surfrider Foundation database, which tracks trends in marine trash and debris and works to pass legislation protecting marine life.
Another popular program is the school’s Reusable Bottle Campaign. According to statistics for the third marking period, 87% of the student body or 321 students brought reusable bottles to school every day, eliminating 13,803 single use plastic bottles from the waste stream. If all the bottles collected through the third marking period were lined up end to end, the plastic bottles would span from the southern point of Longport to the Stockton University Atlantic City campus, he said.
Every water fountain in the school is equipped with reusable bottle fillers, and at the beginning of the school year, students were supplied with aluminum reusable bottles.
“The program has been well received by their families, too,” he said.
Administrative staff are helping in their own way by ensuring that single-sided copies are collected for reuse, saving more than 35 pounds of paper in the third marking period alone. By the end of the school year, the district will save more than 100 pounds of paper. The schools also recycle printer cartridges (68), spent crayons and markers (8 pounds) at Staples.
Students held their periodic weeding and cleanup of the Ocean Friendly Garden, which they planted near Lafayette Avenue with the assistance of the Surfrider Foundation. On Wednesday, elementary and middle school students planted two swamp white oak trees, which provide ample habitat for wildlife, in the grass strip between the playground and the bayside parking lot. Two on-site rain barrels recycle rainwater and reduce the amount of water used from the sprinkler system, he said.
There’s a greenhouse attached to Capizola’s classroom where students planted starters of peppers, greens and sunflowers, in preparation for a community vegetable garden that will be maintained and harvested after the school year by members of the community. There’s even some hydroponically grown plants, along with blueberry and raspberry bushes. With financial support from AtlantiCare’s Healthy Schools program, four raised beds measuring 5-by-20 feet will be built next to the Ocean Friendly Garden along Lafayette Avenue.
“We’re not here during the summer months, so we will reach out to the community to care for and enjoy the fruits and vegetables from the garden during the summer months,” he said.
Another community pollinator garden further down Lafayette Avenue that was planted two years ago by the Ventnor City Go Green Team with native plants donated by the Xerces Society attracts Monarch butterflies and other pollinating insects and birds. He said students spotted numerous Monarch caterpillars feeding on the milkweed last September before they completed metamorphosis in preparation for their migration to Mexico.
Capizola is also a member of the city’s Go Green team and is secretary of the Surfrider Foundation and has a hand in sustainability actions outside of school.
“Our end goal is to do as much as we can this year to get our Green Team off to a good start, bringing in programs that make us more sustainable. We’ve got the kids, teachers and administrators involved, and even the Board of Education is supporting the effort,” Capizola said. “We look forward to continuing it, getting Sustainable Jersey for Schools certified and sharing our successes with other schools.”
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