Ideas to help Kahuku become a Green School
Projects:
Aquaponics - organic produce for students, teachers, staff and community
- vegetables (manoa lettuce, sweet potatoes, etc)
- fruits (stawberries, blackberries)
- herbs (basil, stevia, mint)
- duckweed, lilies, aquaponics cover plants from 13 Moons garden
- native plants (Hawaiian blackberry, 'olena, mamaki ko'oko'olau from Matt)
- Tilapia fish ($7 a pound)
- freshwater prawns from Romy's
- pellet making from salad and greens waste as fishfood
- make salad for new salad bar in cafeteria
- sustainability art work, photographs, crafts
- added value food products
- build Archimedes/windmill water pump
- use rain catchment barrels
- barrel composter
- barrel portable power station/vertical windmill
- water wheel pump
- solar pump
- Pelton wheel tied to a generator
- recreate ancient fish ponds and lo'i fields (Kahana, Kualoa, Heeia, Kaneohe Bay)
- sell finished aquaponics systems, aquaponics plants, videos, flyers, duckweed, grown plants, seedlings, fish (fries and fully grown)
- grow kenaf, gasification project http://www.environmentalhouse.com/electricity_from_Kenaf.htm
Composting
- put shredded paper in compost, food waste not in dumpster. Save $100 per dumpster per week
- harvest black gold
Stop growing grass, use wood chips instead
- save money mowing and trimming
- control flooding, mud, safety, weeds
- grow fruits, bananas, vegetables,
Stop using dumpters
- save $100 per dumpster per week
- put shedded paper and food waste in compost piles
- small waste collection bins for each school building
Providing green outreach programs from KHIS
- gardening basics
- composting
- home brewing natural pest control
- edible landscaping
- growing culinary herbs
- spiral herb garden
- soapmaking and natural cleaning products
- gray water catchment systems
- rain barrel catchment systems
- plant based cooking
- permaculture design basics
- solar dehydrators
- solar power/photovoltaic basics
- making a solar model car
- making a solar oven
- cooking with a solar oven
- reducing utilities
- reducing footprint
- living in a smaller space
Square foot gardens
- sell finished product or as a kit, installation extra charge
- sell irrigation system
- build pergolas
Worm Farms
- turn cafeteria food waste into food for worms. Worms consume 1/2 their weight per day.
- worms ($20 a pound)
- vermicast ($3 a pound)
- worm tea ($1 a gallon)
- worm farms in Wal-Mart plastic containers, 4 car tires, barrels, burlap bags, shedded paper, coconut fiber bedding
Off-Grid Living
- Tiny Homes/Sheds tied into Aquaponics, Sq. foot gardens and worm farms, photovoltaic, solar panels, grey water
Emergency preparedness
- Know how to grow perpetual food and access clean water
Location:
Tours (onsite behind Z building and offsite):
- tour of sustainability garden ($1?)
- use trailer to transport portable aquaponics system, sq.ft garden, worm farm to schools, fairs, trade shows, farmer's markets
- add value to raw products (i.e. corn man)
Put banners in classes about green initiatives, showcase students, tie in green initiatives with DOE common standards (both regular and CTE standards)
Put quotes about sustainabiliy on walls
Put banner that explain STEM, how it ties into DOE common standards, GLO's, teaching, etc
Organization:
Grant writing for funding (private and public)
- Hawaii
- US
- International
Building relationships with other green organizations in Hawaii, mainland, international
- local experts in health, nutrition, fitness, dieticians, Hawaii Sustainability commandchefs, culture, arts, science, math, physics, chemistry biology, Dr. Baize's group, etc
Links:
http://kokuahawaiifoundation.org
http://thegreenhousehawaii.com
Notes:
google biodynamic seeds
poly-keder fabric
solviva anna edey
bd500 and bd501 preparations
get soil tester, test acidity
planty mycorrhyxal fungi
get effective micronutrients (E.M.'s)
plant a cover crops, grow green beans
biodynamic farming, biodynamic gardening method - rudolf steiner
energetic frequency infusion
one man, one cow, one planet
Tie in KHIS' special ed, chemistry, Hawaiian language, digital media, biology, culinary arts classes; health learning center, etc
Pay scholarships to students running green program using Ma'o Farms model
Use kahuku.org workforce students for sustainability garden
Outreach:
- Use kahuku.org, parent bulletin, KHIS alumni enewsletters to get word out about Sustainability program and invite them to participate
- Use Kahuku 'Olelo and final cut pro to create video that would be published on 'Olelo educational channels and on youtube
- Use existing website, facebook page and ning social media site to tie all programs and press releases together.
- Create sustainability PSA's for sponsors
- Create green and sustainability curriculum as PDF files and youtube vidoes
Uila’s “Go Green” Projects:
1. CFL Exchange program - our school is participating in this program....to promote energy efficiency, students are switching out old lightbulbs with CFLs provided by the Blue Planet Foundation for FREE. CFLs use 75% less energy as compared to old incandescent lightbulbs. As a bonus, for every old bulb we switch out, the school earns 40 cents. If you would like to get your students involved, let me know. I made it an assignment for my students...they each took 4 boxes of CFLs (4 in each box) and switched out their old bulbs at home, their neighbors or relatives. We are going door to door this week Tuesday and Thursday after school. The program ends Dec 15th.
2. Hawaii Energy Workshop on Monday, December 5th in Pearl City. The workshop is FREE though you must register online at www.hawaiienergy.com/NEED. They will even pay for your sub for the day. Please let me know if you want to attend next Monday so that I can work on the sub request from the school...easier to do it as a group rather than individually. There will be another one offered in the Spring if you cannot make this one.
3. Belkin Energy Lab - a teacher on the Big Island created this lab for her students. They took home Energy monitors and did a home assessment then brought the data back to class for review. The documents she created are attached to this email. Hawaii Energy provided her with a classroom set of Energy kits for her students. They are willing to do the same for our school if anyone would like to do the same. I have a sample one in my classroom that you can look at.
4. First Wind Kahuku - Kendra, myself, and a few other teachers are looking to partner with First Wind Kahuku to get our students involved in what is going on the wind farm. Still up in the air though we are taking some students to visit the site this Weds Nov. 30 after school at 2pm. If you are interested in or want to get your students involved, please let Kendra know. She has been our primary contact person with First Wind.
5. G Bldg Solar Panel Project - The DOE and HECO have selected Kahuku as one of only a few high schools on Oahu to install Solar Panels in. The energy from the solar panels will feed directly into our school's meter to help reduce our school's electricity bill (which was almost $24,000 for the month of Sept). It will only make a dent in the overall electric usage but its a start. The project will start in January and is scheduled to be completed in March 2012. The company installing the panels may be looking at getting a few students involved to learn about the process. Let me know if you would like to get involved or have them come to talk to your class about what they do, the process, etc. I can put you in touch with the Project Manager.
A SCHOOL That PROTECTS Our Economy, Health, Environment, and Resources, TODAY and TOMORROW.
Public schools are community centers which are financed by taxes, and are therefore excellent places to apply innovative designs and technologies that offer better methods for heating, cooling and air purification, for food production, and for sewage and solid waste management. Not only does this offer communities a chance to save money and resources and prevent pollution, but it also offers opportunities for students, teachers, parents, and the community at large to learn important skills for good living. The time has come to add a few more "R's" to the curriculum: Recycling, Reuse, Resource Recovery and Restoration, Retrofitting, and perhaps most important, Responsibility, Respect and Reverence for Earth, life and coming generations.
Unfortunately, schools are being built and expanded in thousands of communities across the nation, including the Martha's Vineyard (my home community) with little or no regard for the needs of tomorrow, or even today. This is a tragedy. Over the last few years, five different schools on the Vineyard have been doubled or tripled in size. In the early stages of the planning for each one, I presented solar-dynamic, bio-benign proposals, which were repeatedly ignored and rejected by the architects who claimed that solar is neither affordable nor practical. This in spite of the fact that both my home and the Solviva greenhouse were available as eloquent proof.
Because of continued lobbying, some of the schools did get some very small attempts at solar, but my input was refused. As a result, these attempts are very costly and unsuccessful. Due to the architects' lack of knowledge and experience in comprehensive and efficient solar design, these token attempts actually consume more energy than they provide, thus perpetuating the impression that solar design is impractical and expensive. I am tempted here to express my frustration by writing pages about the extraordinarily expensive, impractical, wasteful, polluting, unattractive, unhealthy systems these architects installed. The schools now have ventilation, heating, cooling, lighting, and wastewater management systems that would never have been built if committee members had considered the real impact for both now and the future. Perhaps if architects were rewarded for cutting costs for both construction and operation, rather than earning a fixed percentage of the total cost of construction, they would have provided a more economical, practical and energy-efficient plan.
These five Vineyard school projects could have been built to consume 80 percent less energy, reducing depletion of oil by some 200,000 gallons per year, reducing annual co2 pollution of our atmosphere by 4 million pounds, and reducing the tax burden in our community by wee over $200,000 per year.
Comprehensive solar-dynamic design could have been installed, complemented with multi-fueled, clean-burning, automatic furnaces, fueled primarily by wood chips from planted energy forests and deadwood from the adjacent State Forest, plus shredded low-grade wastepaper, with oil only as an occasional backup. Solar-dynamic design could have provided not only these savings, but also a strong sense of security for the whole community, stemming from the knowledge that these schools would never be threatened with closures due to scarcity and crippling cost of oil caused by future oil embargoes, wars or terrorism (certain to occur again and again). Also, the community would gain a strong sense of well-being by minimizing negative impact on economy, environment and resources, thereby protecting future generations.
A solar-dynamic bio-benign school.
My proposal for a good school design has south-, southeast- and southwest-facing walls and roofs that provide solar heating and cooling, with long-term solar heat stored in slab foundations, and ducts and fans distributing the heat as needed. Some of these walls double as greenhouses, with vegetation ranging from salad greens, vegetables, tomatoes and herbs to tropical flowers and vines. A brief period each week is enough to provide the opportunity for students to learn how to grow organic food and ornamental plants year-round. It also enriches the curriculum for art, sciences and vocational education. Students can gain experience in business and marketing by selling the produce, raising moneyfor school trips and other "nonessential" expenditures.
As a fringe benefit, the school population benefits from cleaner air, great places to study and hang out during breaks, and fresh organic salads every day, all of which improve the health and energy (and therefore the performance) of the entire school population.
Stale air from the classrooms is purified as it flows through these greenhouses, because plants have an extraordinary capacity for absorbing not only the co2 and infectious germs emitted by people, but also other air pollution, such as formaldehyde and other outgassing from carpeting, plastics and various cleaning compounds. Fresh air is also brought in from outside, warmed as it passes through the solar walls and roofs. These are capable of warming the air even on cloudy days.
Flush toilets and sinks drain into odor-free aerobic composting chambers. Here the solids decompose into superior compost, while the liquid, about 4,000 gallons per day for a 700-student school, drains through the compost chambers and into a pump chamber. Float valve-controlled pumps periodically pulse 200 gallons to a series of Brownfilters, housed in a small building. From there the odor-free effluent is pumped to perforated pipes laid in landscape-enhancing Greenfilter beds. This wastewater system costs 25 to 50 percent less than conventional septic systems, causes 90 percent less nitrogen pollution, and produces holly, Christmas trees, cedar posts, bamboo stakes, wood chips for heating, and valuable compost.
The food wastes and lowest-grade paper wastes turn into compost for the greenhouses and landscaping. The high-grade waste paper is recycled, as are bottles, cans and all plastics. All toxic wastes are kept separated and less than 10 percent of the solid wastes remain as trash, which can be safely landfilled on-island.
If a community such as the Vineyard, with a year-round population of about 14,000, had schools like this, taxpayers could save not only $200,000 in energy bills, but also many thousands on food that can be grown instead of bought, and many thousands on sewage and solid waste management, while at the same time improve health and education - and safeguard our future. This is not just a pie-in-the-sky dream, as many would think. This is practical and cost-effective today. It is of course best to build the solar-dynamic, bio-benign design right to start with, but it is also possible to retrofit almost any existing building, no matter how inefficiently designed and built.
IDEAS that need to be cleaned up
effort that will will tie in all of the doe's learning outcomes and provide something exciting, healthy and beneficial to all kahuku students and their families
example and documentation of a Kahuku student’s
- workforce training
- college prep
- career plan
- senior project
- scholarship prep
- mentoring prep
- job shadowing prep
- sports prep (healthy body)
entire schools participating in green School initiatives: pre-school, elementary, middle, high, college
for all students, staff, administration, custodians, food services, bus drivers, security, parents, community, politicians, tourists, etc
every student has an aquaponics/greenhouse system at home or at school providing food, fish, clean water
food services is trained to run main aquaponics
compete in sustainability competitions, win awards
special needs students sell raw food snacks (organic carrots, celery, cauliflower), seeds and plants at cafeteria
kahuku.org sells information DVD's, building plans, raw materials
all classes tie in
culinary makes healthy organic food from organic plants and fish
doe learning centers
physiology, biology, music
digital media (take pictures and videos of students doing projects)
english (read and write essays and poems about sustainability and students doing projects)
speech and debate (prepare speeches about sustainability, annual sustainability oratory competition - find sponsors)
foreign (learn about sustainability in another language)
science (biology, chemistry, earth science, environmental science, herbs, flowers)
math (measure and apply formulas)
shop (build systems)
kahuku.org (sell plans)
cafeteria (sell snacks, flowers, clothing, herbal teas, farmer's market, vermiculture, earth worms, worm tea)
social studies (how modern society has moved away from sustainability)
history (learn about ancient sustainability systems)
art (draw ahupua'a)
make monoi oil (with tiare tahiti flower petals and shredded coconut meat)
Coach Price interviewing self-sufficent kahuku footballs players doing aquaponics
students can start fire with sticks in Samoa lavalava
climb coconut trees to get coconuts to share with community
raise fish and organic plants
make organic pizza
filter water using photovoltaic system
showcase survival skills
grow cotton and tapa to make clothing using a loom and pounding tapa cloth (use a wind powered loom?)
the school is a village sustaining itself without money and whose learning exceeds the stardards of the DOE learning outcomes
involves all students
money is raised to pay all student fees, project grad, lunch money (and plants for their breakfast and dinners too)
raise money to switch to photovoltaics, solar, flourescent light bulbs, windmills, etc
career planning with renewable energy mentors, international visitors - showcase multiu-cultural student body
use vermiculture for soil for football field, worm tea to fertilize it
students have to 'earn right' to take aquaponics unit home. win prizes for best maintained, most productive, most creative, most ....
certifications for every step completed
student starts with aquaponics from pre-school.
use as model for other schools in the state, US and world
living village - Kahuku red raider country - independent living - living off grid – food security
do a training orientation walkthrough of everything with just a few students
need printed program and website explaining purpose and process
all students sign waiver, receive badge identifying their name, class, career objective
school admin help with orientation and greetings
orientation with politicians, business owners, media
assembly line aquaponics
quick project screen orientation - how it works - outcomes
music singing songs to welcome
tie in Hawaiian studies opening chant and Hawaiian dance
unassembled aquaponics
10 aquaponics stations with shop students (usually $50 an hour training) - need BYUH sustainability club guides to move people to open stations
tie in dr. baize phd's
vinyl signs behind each aquaponics with their specific science project
chemistry and biology students and their science fair project
herbs from science learning center
all students are wearing kikepa's and football uniforms
- tie in doe learning outcomes
- tie in math / STEM
- tie in computer class
- tie in values and character development - put signs of each value on walls
translate values into 4 languages on signs
create a photo or artwork representing each value
put learner outcomes on walls, school mission statement
tie in agricultural department
create science learning center
- tie in art class - jarrod pere - Koolau mountain backdrop
- tie in photography
- tie in yearbook
- tie in film club
- tie in library
- tie in history day projects - agriculture, bartering and aquaponics in history
- tie in speech and debate, they give orientation speech and follow up at end
- tie in Japanese and Spanish classes - translations
- tie in we the people - people right to sell, barter - taxes, growing own food
- culinary art class grills pizza and other finished using aquaponics products
- tie in writing / press releases, articles, web
- special ed students sell finished products with kahuku.org
- byuh sustainability club
give food samples - mint
water catchment - reverse osmosis
cost saving using aquaponics
using archimedes screw powered by windmill - competition on football field? - first wind
proceeds help benefits kahuku sports, history day, speech and debate
fundraising for project grad, student obligations, graduation fee, AP tests
carnival games for young children, polynesian storytelling
exhibits by kokua hawaii foundation,
career center helps students connect with public, collects business cards from potential mentors
counselors observe, interact with parents and students
student have participants write survey, collect email for kahuku.org enewsletter, aquaponics training
find sponsors such as tbr, kahuku farms, kualoa ranch, pcc
sponsor t-shirt - ace hardware, lowe's, home depot, bank
sell finished aquaponics, organic farmer's market, produce, flower, herbs, spices, prawns, fish
donations
politicians and business owners helping students
students fill out survey and write what they learned
earn tiered certificate for participation
students win awards from mystery interviewers, quality of presentation, appearance, eye contact
students are building their portfolio, resume, hookups with mentors, letters of recommendations, college prep
we will provide students with boilerplate copy of what the community service projects they accomplished to put on their resumes, letters of recommendation
income:
250,000 households on oahu need aquaponics, greenhouses, compost soil, worm farms,
guided tours, classes,
food security, support police, firemen, FEMA, civil defense, military during extended emergencies. Store coffin liners, emergency shelters.
renewable energy education
students live in 5,000 units on ag land surrounded by aquaponics. 20 students in 1st class. (dorms).
earn money building, grow own food.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-08-02-sustainability-degrees_N.htm
http://www.cccc.edu/curriculum/majors/sustainableagriculture/
partnership with windward community college, byuh, malaekahana, first wind biologists, usda, noaa, other $1 million grants, become a green school, ulupono initiative, ko’olau health center, kahuku ag dept, kahuku science dept
make kahuku a green school
students earn associate with high school and get a $30 an hour job as they earn scholarships as they work and teach,
offer training programs for teachers, online videos, curriculum,
we provide student housing, food, internet access, electricity,
there are grants for sustainability education at wcc: sustainable technology program at Windward Community College
http://www.kapionewspress.com/2010/11/29/new-scholarship-increases-sustainbility-awareness/
need used truck with life to delivery finished sq. foot gardens, dirt, worm farms, feed, etc. $10,000
need bobcat on trailer $570012 courses for 2 year degree in Sustainability (to be earned concurrently with H.S. Degree):
4 AP chemistry (measure dissolved oxygen, nitrates, ph)
4 AP biology (study health of fish, work with Oceanic Institute on feed stock for fish, chickens, goats, rabbits)
4 AP sustainable agriculture (matt class in 7th and 8th grade pre-requisite)
4 AP building and construction (build aquaponics, sq foot gardens, worm farms, build homes, irrigation, build greenhouses)
4 AP business/entrepreneurship (compete in business plan competition at BYUH)
4 AP english (writing for enewsletter, forum, blog, press releases)
3 AP communications (weekly communications with experts, training others)
3 AP Math or AP statistics
3 AP culinary arts (turtle bay resort chef)
3 communications/digial media/'olelo certification web development
3 AP health (ko’olau health)
3 AP special hawaiian history/sustainability class (ahupuaa, loi fields, fish ponds, Ben schaeffer, Dr. Tamaru)
summer term take WCC classes
20 11th and 12th graders
10 teachers
students work at kahuku.org to sell online instructional videos, pdf files, lesson plans, etc.