An institutional thing: VES educator shows how actions affect planet

Teacher Sarah Swain is all about going green, and she wants her students to be, too.

The second year Virginia Episcopal School educator teaches biology and Advanced Placement environmental science. In doing so, she shows students how their actions affect the planet and what they can do to help the Earth.

“Sometimes peoples’ perceptions right away are that it’s only for a particular political party or it’s something you have to be sacrificial about, if you’re going green,” she said.That’s simply not the case, she said.

Swain is helping her students to understand that fact, primarily through lessons in her environmental science class.

For example, last year she took a dozen students on a weekend trip to the Chesapeake Bay. Swain said she wanted to immerse her students in ecological principles by letting them see how human actions affect the bay.

“It just really made a big impact on each one of them, to be more aware of their impact on the Earth,” she said.

As part of the lesson, students completed a stream assessment on the James River watershed, which feeds into the bay.

“So whatever happens in their lawn and on the roads here in Lynchburg eventually impacts the creatures they saw and put their hands on in the Chesapeake Bay,” Swain said, adding she intends to make the bay field trip a yearly exercise.

“They also see it’s not just me who believes these things and teaches these things.”

Swain hopes realizing their impact will give her students an incentive to go green and to make keeping the environment healthy part of their everyday routines.

Case in point: the school’s recycling program, which Swain is revamping this year. There’s been a recycling program in place at VES for a few years, but it’s been made up mostly of volunteers and a faculty member who drives the recycling to the nearby Kroger.

Swain applied for a grant from Sam’s Club and got money to purchase recycling bins. The school will also utilize the Recycle Easy program.

Swain hopes the new process will give the recycling program a permanent structure.

“So it’s not so much in the hands of one faculty member trying to make it work, it’s an institutional thing,” she said. “I’m hoping this system will really be able to manage on its own.”

Students have been receptive to the school’s various environmental measures. Students created the “energy patrol” prior to Swain’s tenure, and she now helps with it.

“Students will go in groups and turn off lights and check for open windows or leaking faucets after lights out,” Swain said, adding the goal is to make sure there’s no additional energy consumption after people have gone to bed.

Students are also working with Swain on the school’s first official Earth Day celebration, set for April 22. Still, in the planning stages, the school hopes to have a picnic and time for campus beautification. Students are currently trying to secure green vendors.

“Students in my class will be helping connect people who want to come and do demonstrates or show off energy savings products,” Swain said.

Her own interest in the environment came when Swain was herself just in high school. She said a teacher inspired her, and she found herself getting a master’s degree in environmental studies.

“It helped me start early on before I even got out into the world,” she said of studying the environment in high school. “I already had a clue there were certain ways to live that were less impactful.”

Now, she hopes to share that knowledge with a new generation of high school students.