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These 108 freshmen rule over the single floor of the Green School in Williamsburg. Next year, 108 more will arrive. But until then, this class walks alone through the halls…past pencil drawings of the circulatory system and photos of their first field trip to the New York Aquarium.
Administrators hope students will walk away from the Green School as the next generation of environmental leaders.
Their plan? Weave lessons of sustainability through a standard curriculum of math, science and the humanities. Teachers like Michelle Fufaro want kids to consider how they interact with the world. She urges students to think about the waste they create and how much energy they use….where their hamburgers originate.
Sometimes, she finds herself trying to convince students these ideas are important.
AX (Fufaro :24)
So I have a new angle for you guys on the word sustainable. What does a sustainable city or growing toward a sustainable city mean for you? You're getting training that people in the city are not getting. When they are looking for people to work for the city or in hospitals, or most careers, they are going to know you went to the Green School and they are going to want to hire you.
NARR
Fufaro and other teachers here say getting through to students has been difficult. Many don't have special interest in the environment. They found themselves assigned to the Green School randomly in the fall. Fufaro says few of her students even knew what the word sustainable meant before they arrived here.
Still, the school is having an impact on some, like 14-year-old Jackie Cassinga.
AX (Cassinga :13)
I wasn't interested at first in what they were talking about. Sustainability. I thought it was going to be boring. But what they were really saying is Look what you are doing to us. Look at what you are doing to yourself in this kind of environment. So that's a big issue.
NARR
But others still resist. Most can't fully describe what sustainability really means and Fufaro says many students remain skeptical.
AX (Fufaro :15)
They're resistant like 14 year olds would be resistant. You know, they're saying no and, oh god. They're learning how their role can make a difference in their community, but a lot of it comes from, they don't believe it yet. And so this type of stuff is hopefully understand it a lot better.
AX (Kids :17)
Girl: Show me what you did on computer.
Boy: I went to Eco-foot dot org.
Girl: I know but show me what you did. You typed in what?
Boy: ECO-FOOT dot org! Look at the page. It says ecological footprint quiz.
NARR
In this class, Crystal Rodriguez and Robert Barrios discovered that if everyone consumed as much energy as they do, they'd need six planet earths to sustain them. That surprised Crystal.
AX (Kids :09)
Girl: How many?
Boy: Six.
Girl: I got six planets, so that's bad.
Narr: But there's only one planet.
Girl: I know. So I did bad on that one.
NARR
In the spring, they'll visit to Newtown Creek in Brooklyn where a severe decades-old oil spill crippled the local waterway. Some will have internships with eco-friendly architects or environmental groups in their junior year. In between is the standard fare: math, speech and music classes…but with sustainability themes.
Roll hip-hop music underneath.
AX (Whitaker :05)
My name is justice Whitaker. I teach a film and technology class.
Whitaker teaches his students to recognize hate lyrics in music and encourages his students to explore the physical landscape of their neighborhoods. Whitaker says they now understand the disgrace of dirty streets.
AX (Whitaker :16)
Ashamed, cluttered, overwhelmed, poor. These are all words that came out of a project where we are talking about how we feel about our community. So I am really giving students to take a look at the community and how are we going to change these feelings? How are we going to create a community that we are proud of?
NARR
Jess SCAN-el 's group helps the Green School implement these lessons. She heads up the Brooklyn Center of Urban Environment, which helps educate children about their natural and built surroundings. She says parents and administrators put tremendous pressure to succeed on small niche schools.
AX (Scannell :18)
People will be looking to see, can you really do this? Can you have students who have a high attendance rate and a high graduation rate? Can they graduate with real-life experience in sustainability and an understanding of what it means and where do they go from there? Do they actually use it?
NARR
Green School's Principal Ka-raw-lee Pits-a-lee and her teachers are well aware that these students must pass their standardized exams.
Roll classroom ambi underneath
Pitzalee says her students will be ready for the tests. But she also says it will take several years to judge if the sustainability components of the Green School are actually sinking in.
For Columbia Radio News, I'm Peter O'Dowd.