Author: José Carlos Alaniz, Sustainability Coordinator and Upper School Teacher

The 13th edition of Earth Week, named: ¨A diverse community needs a biodiverse environment¨, provided once more the opportunity for all of us to come together to become aware, learn skills, and act on behalf of a more sustainable future.

During this week, 110 workshops guided students from EEC to Upper School to make seed bombs, give new life to cardboard and old shirts by turning them into bookmarks and tote bags, make water filters, permanent art from molten PET bottles or ephemeral art with bottle caps, turn a PET bottle into a bright flower, shirt stripes into colorful bracelets, identify invasive species with a game, draw our native species of wildlife, make pots from bottles and tetra packs and design and build the best five-stars hotel for pollinating insects.

More than 2,500 students participated in these workshops held under the shade of decennial trees in the Founders' Garden, sharing hands-on activities with either ECC, lower, middle or upper schoolers, along with visiting facilitators, biologists, environmental educators, gardeners, CONABIO experts, sixteen green business entrepreneurs, as well as with weather, air, humidity, soil, seeds, water, and plants in a dynamic ecosystem of diverse communities.

¨Coming back to ASF to talk about how our food impacts our environment brought me many great memories¨, said Dorian Posternak who graduated in 2013.

Michelle Kalach,('13)  Mónica Lafon ('04), and Nicolas Bodek ('13) also attended the call to return to share with students their very personal experiences which are not provided by textbooks, on climate change, sustainability, and decarbonization.

Earth week and our 6th recyclathon could not have been achieved without the leadership, love, and passion of more than 35 mom volunteers from the Parent Association who spent countless hours of devoted work.  Parents also participated in the eco-market and by obtaining sustainable-made products are adopting greener lifestyles.

Upper School students through three clubs– NJHS students, who made ephemeral art through reusing colorful bottle caps, Goiello (which means jewel in Italian) and Glassify– offered workshops to Lower School students and the great Green team in LS collected all the recyclables from LS for our recyclathon.

In order to close earth week activities, a memorial garden made out of only plants whose flowers attract hummingbirds, and three flowering trees were planted thus initiating a tradition of planting pollinators’ gardens as a memorial of each earth week in the coming years

From external providers and maintenance Personnel to Students and teachers from all Divisions, Alumni and Parents, our community came together to learn from each other and create a common vision for a more sustainable future where more insects, plants and organisms share their lives with us for a longer and more equilibrated life.

Check out the Earth Week Photo Gallery below!

Or download your favorite photo here