Sustainability

MKA’s youngest students take an active role in sustainability. Proper recycling of daily materials, such as paper, cardboard, and juice boxes, is practiced. Each grade has a triple bin for recycling, and students in each classroom have weekly recycling responsibilities. Students in grades 1–3 learn about vermicomposting through science class, and students in grade 3 are responsible for picking up food scraps from the Primary School kitchen and composting them in outdoor bins. These Primary School leaders also have the option of researching a sustainability issue and advocating for its implementation on a community level as part of a spring unit of study called Agents of Change.

At the Middle School, students lead many of the sustainability initiatives, including recycling, gardening, and composting. In grade 4, students learn about the importance of recycling, share this message with the school community, and are in charge of recycling classroom paper every week. Fifth graders learn about where their food comes from and goes to, tend worm compost bins, and grow their own food in a garden as part of an interdisciplinary curriculum.

During advisory lessons at all grade levels, students learn about and reflect on their impact on the environment and suggest ways to make the school and themselves more sustainable. Students in the Green Group, a student-led club for grades 4-8, create videos, posters, and assemblies to teach the MKA community about where our waste goes, how we recycle, and what we can do to make a difference. They have also participated in the Green Cup Challenge and reported the results to the school community.

At the Upper School, we strive for greatness in all we do, and often it comes as the result of many smaller steps that add up to make a big difference. We have made changes both in our daily habits as well as to the building. Every part of student life, from printing to eating, and transportation to how we learn, is being adjusted to decrease our impact on our environment. Our new Academic Center, which is LEED certified, conserves resources and demonstrates our commitment to the environment.

The Environmental Action (EnAct) Club works to raise awareness, inspire more eco-friendly personal habits, make the school more environmentally sound, and advocate for issues that members care about by writing local representatives. Student leaders present environmentally topical information and recommendations for action to the student body at all-school meetings each month.

As part of the curriculum, all first-year students take a global citizenship class that includes topics such as global warming, the tragedy of the commons, and other environmental issues. In addition, an environmental science class studies water quality at the nearby Peckman River, and statistics classes use real-time electricity data from the school in project-based learning.