SUSTAINABILITY
Katie Cooper, Sustainability Coordinator
Sustainability is an integral part of our community. CA promotes respect for the natural world, a sense of responsibility towards future generations, and global citizenship through curricular, co-curricular, service, and afternoon activities. We aim to inspire our students to become leaders who strive to incorporate environmental stewardship into every aspect of campus life by modeling what we teach through our institutional practices.
Our ongoing sustainability initiatives are designed to reduce our carbon footprint and to raise awareness about the importance of conserving our planet, including:
- Single-stream recycling system
- Bottle-filling water stations around campus
- Solar panels
- Green Move-Out in each dorm
- Textile recycling
- Used clothing racks in each dorm
- CA apparel and textbook buy-back and resell program (in the works)
- Composting system (in the works)
- Campus activities, including beach clean-ups and attending conferences on sustainability.
Academics
While all classes here educate students on how to be good stewards, some classes converse deeply about how they can make positive and lasting impacts to better our communities, and the environment as a whole. Starting in the 9th-grade year, and continuing through the PG program, there are offerings available in a number of academic departments.
Modeling Climate Change
Students enrolled in the Modeling Climate Change course explore how economic models and projects are affected by climate trends, the business of sustainable energy, and the role that changes in weather patterns are playing in war zones, migration and immigration, radicalism, and natural disaster cleanup and recovery.
The Environment,
Justice, and You
9th-grade seminar – This course demonstrates the ways that environment and justice intersect, and how individuals can work to understand and take action against injustice. Students explore current environmental justice issues and learn how to see inequities through a multi-modal lens.
Global Issues
Students in the postgraduate program all participate in this global investigation of interconnected topics. An investigation into the historical causes of climate change, its modern-day impacts and the many policy debates surrounding the fight to combat these current and future impacts takes students around the globe from Washington D.C., to small Pacific Island nations.
STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
COALITION FOR A SUSTAINABLE CHESHIRE
Achievements
LED lighting implemented in 2019.
earth day
ELKAY WATER REFILL STATIONS
ZACH PINE MAHER '18
“The Eco Leaders organization was where I learned to communicate ideas about the environment, hold club meetings, and organize events. Now at Union College and as a board member for the U-Sustain club, I deliver bi-weekly presentations on environmental news, conservation topics, and explorations into different areas of the sustainability field. I certainly see environmental activism as a large part of my future.”
