The Orchard School Celebrated Earth Day With a Week’s Worth of Service Projects | Photo Album & Video

4/28/2019

With nature as teacher being one of the staples of an Orchard education, Earth Day provides an opportunity for our students to spend even more time focusing their energies on various service projects to further enjoy the Earth. It’s also the perfect opportunity for students to collaborate and share knowledge in order to benefit the community.

So this year for Earth Day, Orchard students spent time throughout the week taking care of our 43-acre wooded campus. To kick things off, there was an all-school assembly on Monday, April 22. And to close the week, our awesome Parents’ Association led a Day of Service focused on sprucing up the Orchard woods.

Thank you to our Outdoor Education Coordinator, Colleen Bumford, for working with teachers and Orchard's grounds crew to organize a wonderful week of focused learning.

After you watch the recap video below, keep scrolling to see photos from Orchard’s Earth Week!

Parent portal users click here to see the photos.

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- Multiage Preschool:
  
  They investigated soil in different locations around the campus. Students also planted their own seeds and documented their work in a journal with sketches and drawings.
- Kindergarten:
  
  Students pulled weeds from various gardens around the campus. They also learned the proper way to plant a flower.
- First Grade:
  
  After receiving a grant from the Feed a Bee program, students have been hard at work plotting and measuring for a new pollinator garden. A lot of their time last week was spent pulling weeds and preparing for the garden.
- Second Grade:
  
  Orchard second graders are currently part of a national food waste audit organized by the World Wildlife Fund. They taught their seventh grade Special Friends about food waste while engaging in some hands-on learning. What a great way to incorporate math, technology, art, community, and social and emotional learning.
- Third Grade:
  
  The Kings and Queens of pulling winter creeper! Students pulled massive amounts of the invasive species in our woods. One student said, “I think we found about five jackpots of winter creeper this week.”
- Fourth Grade:
  
  Students cleaned up and collected hundreds of sticks surrounding the Orchard Cabin. Look at those piles!
- Fifth Grade:
  
  The amount of honeysuckle this group collected is hard to imagine. They worked hard pulling HUGE amounts at once…all while quoting Remember the Titans, “Left side! Strong Side!”
- Sixth Grade:
  
  Students walked through the woods and around the perimeter of campus collecting trash.
- Seventh Grade:
  
  They assisted their second grade Special Friends to help inform the community on the impact of food waste. They made informative videos, completed a food audit, and much much more.
- Eighth Grade:
  
  Students are creating toxin brochures. They are researching a product that has negative effects on households, an industry, or the environment. Particular attention will be paid to proper disposal methods and safer alternative products.
- Parents' Association Day of Service
  
  After the woods work was finished, the Orchard community gathered at the cabin for burgers and hot dogs cooked up by The Orchard Dads' Club and s'mores with the third-grade Brownies and the sixth-grade Girl Scouts.