St Margaret’s-McTernan

Celebrates Earth Day

St Margaret’s-McTernan held a “Green Up” Celebration in honor of Earth Day on Wednesday, April 20. The observance began with an all-school gathering in Goss Field House where the students learned from fellow students and from teacher presentations about the history of Earth Day, natural resources, and recycling and listened to the second grade sing a song about “our friends in the ocean.”

All students were given a dress down day since most of them would be working outdoors. The school identified campus areas that student groups could see or relate to and teachers encouraged students to ask questions such as these:

*Survey the cars that enter the parking lot on Wednesday morning. How many passengers are in each car? Find out how much we recycle as a school.

*Find out how much energy the school consumes (electricity and gas) and how we have tried to conserve it.

*How might the next building that is constructed on campus be designed and built to use a minimum amount of energy?

*How can we maintain our fields and campus in the most environmentally friendly way?

*How can we create less waste from lunch?

The work of each group was chronicled with a before and after photograph. St Margaret’s-McTernan School, to be known as Chase Collegiate after July 1, is an independent, college preparatory school, grades pre-K through 12, located on a 47 acres campus on the Waterbury/Middlebury border.