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Environmental Education

Who is an environmentalist? This is a concept we explore in our district’s Environmental Education program, with our Vision of the Graduate as our guide. Our goal at GUFS is to cultivate the next generation of environmentalists who are curious, empathetic, problem-solvers who work as a team to achieve a common goal! Environmental Education is interwoven into Pre-K-8 science, social studies, ELA, math, and art programs and is built to align with K-8 standards. Students are offered learning experiences that are cross-curricular and project-based, through an environmental lens. We utilize our 181 acre school forest as a classroom to enhance learning opportunities and platform for students to understand concepts in the real world.

  • GUFS Youth Climate Summit

    Garrison made history! On Friday, 5/20/22, The Garrison School hosted the first ever K-8 Youth Climate Summit. The day was full of hands-on workshops centered on connecting students with nature, careers in science, and empowering them to turn climate anxiety into climate action. The Garrison School brought in 13 guest experts who led workshops throughout the school's substantial green spaces. Students foraged in the 181-acre Garrison School Forest, learned from NASA botanists and biomimicry engineers, interacted with live birds of prey, reptiles, and snakes, explored the Green Machine - a truck with a multitude of interactive forms of renewable energy - and so much more.

    The day began with 11 student volunteers from 4th-8th grade, working together to lead a keynote speech about the merit of our local environment, challenges it's facing, and what we can do to help. From Kindergarten to 8th grade, Garrison students left the Summit with the understanding of why we should fight to make the world a greener place - and the knowledge and power of how to do it. Read about it here: PCNR Article (downloaded here), 

Middle School STEAM @ GUFS

  • Students collaborated in teams to design, create, test, and optimize the most energy- and cost-efficient wind turbines, using a set budget and materials list. They explored vertical and horizontal axis wind turbines to determine the most appropriate shape, size, and structure to achieve maximum efficiency, incorporating an idea from each group member in their final designs. Students recorded their machines in action over 3 different trials, then analyzed the videos in slow-motion to determine the machine's average frequency and cross-analyzed that against their budget. Engineering design process at work!

  • STEAM students are working hard to solve the problem of oil spills by analyzing the various causes and cleanup methods through some heavy-duty - and messy - labs! Through their investigations, they determined the best cleanup method (among skimming, dispersants, and sorbents) by comparing each method's cost with its effectiveness. Look out world, we've got solutions!

  • STEAM students are working hard to solve the problem of oil spills by analyzing the various causes and cleanup methods through some heavy-duty - and messy - labs! Through their investigations, they determined the best cleanup method (among skimming, dispersants, and sorbents) by comparing each method's cost with its effectiveness. Look out world, we've got solutions!

  • STEAM students highlighted the contributions from the Black community as part of Black History Month. Then, they did the same for Women's History Month. Students researched pioneers in the STEAM industry...but that's not all! They used their knowledge to include the rest of the school in the celebration by making posters about these pioneers and reading about their impact on the world over the morning announcements. Please enjoy their slideshows of their amazing research!

    Students looking at computers

Our Environmental Education program utilizes a STREAM program, offered to all middle school students. These students are given the opportunity to solve real-world problems via the engineering design process. Failure is welcome in our STREAM courses, as it provides the best opportunity to learn! Students in STREAM engineer renewable energy solutions, connect with themselves, others, and nature through nature journaling and use of the forest, complete projects from multiple stakeholder perspectives, and research and educate the Garrison community on eco-practices everyone can implement to make a greener future.

Garrison is the proud host of the Youth Climate Summit, initiated and planned by students, staff, and community members, each with a shared passion for the environment. These summits provide both the perspective of experts and a space for students across the county to engage in positive environmental discourse that helps to turn climate anxiety into climate action!

Rachel Arbor
Coordinator of Environmental Education & Science Teacher
845-424-3689

rarbor@gufs.org