Rye Country Day's Sustainability initiative seeks to create a climate of environmental awareness and to help students understand that they can effect positive and lasting change in the world by becoming life-long stewards of our planet. We recently sat down with Director of Sustainability Kerry Linderoth for a conversation about sustainability, teaching, and environmental awareness at RCDS.
As Director of Sustainability, what are some of your proudest RCDS moments?
One of my proudest moments as Director of Sustainability was seeing the RCDS community come together to participate in the global climate strike on Friday, September 20, 2019. During this student-led event, over 120 students, as well as many faculty and administrators, marched to the Rye Village Green demanding climate action. Even the Lower School students got involved by making signs and supporting the Upper School students as they began their march! Students truly understood the systemic challenges we will face in combating the climate crisis, and I was proud to see them take their futures into their own hands by combining their classroom education with their desire to create change.
 Climate Strike, September 2019 |
Another one of my proudest RCDS moments was the 2018 Global Studies program in Iceland. On this trip, I not only watched students transform into confident travelers, but I watched as they gained a larger understanding of the earth's systems and saw how our actions in the United States impact ecosystems in Iceland and across the globe. Seeing my students change their habits and share the knowledge they gained on the trip with their friends and family made me confident in our ability as a society to create change one person at a time. It only takes one person to spark a chain reaction, and the trip to Iceland gave students a platform to spread awareness.
 Iceland Global Studies Program, June 2018 |
In your years teaching Environmental Science, has the awareness of young people changed? How has that influenced your curriculum?
There is definitely a heightened sense of awareness among young people now in comparison to when I began teaching Environmental Science. My curriculum is focused more on current events, case studies, and incorporating sustainable habits than it was when I started teaching. Because each environmental problem is multifaceted, students engage in several classroom debates throughout the year on topics such as nuclear energy and GMO's. Every month, students are also tasked with writing an article review on an environmental topic in the news. This assignment means that students are not only thinking critically about sustainability, but they are reading up on current issues on a regular basis. Moreover, with young environmental leaders emerging worldwide, like sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, students have a demographic that they feel is self-representative to look up to as role models.
RCDS gardens are part of the fabric of our community. Can you share how they figure into learning?
The RCDS campus has three vegetable gardens, one for each division, as well as multiple pollinator gardens. Throughout their education at RCDS, students of all ages have the opportunity to get involved in various gardening activities both inside and outside of the classroom. For example, Pre-K students are led by the Upper School Garden Club through a composting lesson and demonstration; fourth graders learn about the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) and donate their fall harvest to a local food pantry; seventh graders in the life science class have a yearlong curricular theme of growing food equity in Westchester County through a collaboration with Our New Way Garden; and students in the AP Environmental Science class grow food to use in our dining hall. Having a comprehensive garden education program at RCDS gives our students an understanding of where their food comes from so they can make informed choices in their futures.
 Students planting in the LS Garden |
You do a few garden- or farm-to-table activities with your students. What do you hope they gain from these experiences?
One of the benefits of our campus gardens is that students have the opportunity to see their hard work come full circle. They plant seeds, perform regular garden maintenance, and ultimately harvest, donate, and eat their produce. Students love any activity that has to do with food, and they are always eager to participate! For example, in Pre-K, students grow their own greens and prepare a delicious salad with the help of Flik, the School's food service provider. Tomatoes from the Lower School garden have been harvested and brought down to the dining hall to be incorporated into a tomato soup that same day. Students in the Sustainability course in the summer ACTION program make one new recipe each day using produce from the garden. Kale chips, which we cook in our solar oven, are an all-time favorite!
During their recent unit on food and agriculture, AP Environmental Science students harvested potatoes from our campus garden and then visited our dining hall to prepare a roasted potato dish with our Head Chef, Jaime Cordero. They also visited Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, where they toured the farm, snacked on vegetables growing in the greenhouse, and prepared a delicious, local farm-to-table lunch. We offer an Upper School elective called "The Science and Sustainability of Food" where students perform a cooking lab once per cycle with food from local farms or our own campus gardens. Their final project is to create a "Mindful Meal" for their peers based on the information learned throughout the semester.
Food has the ability to break down barriers and bring us together regardless of our backgrounds. Through cooking and sharing a meal, students connect with their peers, develop practical life-long cooking skills, gain an understanding of the environmental impact of traditional agriculture, and become more likely to try healthier food options after doing the growing and cooking themselves.
The mission of the Sustainability initiative talks about helping students to "become life-long stewards of our planet." What does that stewardship look like at RCDS, and how can students continue it after they graduate?
Sustainability is so ingrained in our school culture that students participate in stewardship on a daily basis, even just by composting their food waste in our dining hall after lunch. Whether in cross-divisional clubs like the Lower School Sustainability Club, Middle School Green Team, or the Upper School Environmental Club, individual projects such as the Bedford 2020 Greenlight Award, classroom education, and extracurricular activities, students are constantly taking action to protect the environment. It is so important that students recognize that by making small changes in their daily lives, they can make a positive impact on their planet. Students take the information they learn at school and share it with their friends and family, and this ripple effect is what ultimately leads to life-long stewardship of the planet.
 MS Green Team |
How does Sustainability connect with Pubic Purpose and Health & Wellness?
Because sustainability intersects with all of our school-wide strategic initiatives, I have the opportunity to collaborate with students and colleagues in each area of the School on a daily basis. For example, sustainability ties in with public purpose when students are asked to consider what it means to be part of a larger community and the ways in which we share responsibility for one another. Each year, in conjunction with the Community Engagement Fellowship, I see students work on projects aimed to improve the community through work in the environmental field. Projects have ranged from working at Our New Way Garden, which donates the food grown to local food pantries, to tackling environmental policy at the New York League of Conservation Voters. Middle School students have taken leadership in developing service learning projects to benefit local organizations, many of which have been related to environmental topics such as animal welfare and clean water. While all directly related to sustainability, these projects also challenged students to become better local and global citizens. The global studies trip to Iceland also challenged students to think about how their actions have a global effect, once again joining the sustainability initiative with public purpose and global studies. Beyond the RCDS community, the closely woven relationship between sustainability and public purpose provides an avenue for students to create positive, meaningful change in their communities.
All of the work we do in our campus gardens, both inside and outside of the classroom, is closely connected to our school's Health and Wellness initiative. A wide range of scientific studies have outlined the numerous benefits of experiential outdoor education, such as improved academic performance, stress reduction, improved creativity, and a deeper desire to spark environmental change. Student-run groups like the Garden Club also provide students with opportunities for outdoor education and gives students a chance to relax and reflect in the garden during the school day. Part of the seventh grade science curriculum includes nature journaling in which students make observations about a specific outdoor location throughout the course of the year. Through this experience, students develop a deeper appreciation for nature while witnessing the delicate balance of their local ecosystem. Each fall, our Environmental Club and Cross Country team participate in the annual International Coastal Cleanup Day at Edith Read in Rye, which improves our health as well as the health of local ecosystems. Additionally, the Sustainability, STEAM, and Health and Wellness initiatives are currently collaborating on a project to design an outdoor classroom for campus, which would be another opportunity to enjoy the learning and health benefits of getting outside.