Environmental Initiatives at the Child Development Center
The OIST Child Development Center (CDC) is striving to operate in a more environmentally friendly way and help the children to learn about the environment. CDC leadership, staff, parents and children are all part of this exciting effort.
Julia Nabholz, CDC Director, explained her vision for the initiative, “One of my biggest goals for the CDC is to help build a sustainable future for the children.”
Initiatives in the classroom include:
- Art projects made from recycled materials.
- Classroom recycling to teach the importance of recycling through hands-on experience. The children collect empty milk cartons after snack time and take them to local grocery stores with their parents for recycling.
- All teachers and classroom assistants help to collect the banana peels leftover from snack time. Once a week, the children in Shinka class take all the banana peels to the compost pile that the OIST Gardening Club looks after.
Parents are an important part of the solution. The OIST shuttle bus pick-up and drop-off point is just outside the CDC main entrance, and the CDC has stroller storage for parents walking in from campus.
The Parent Association for Tedako at OIST (PATO) developed eye-catching posters to thank people for turning off their engines in the parking lot. Akira Fukumoto, CDC Assistant Director, said “[The initiative] helps keep our earth green while keeping our children safe in the parking lot.”
PATO launched a Green Futures Award to recognize CDC and School Age Program (SAP) teachers, staff and classes that do something special to be environmentally friendly through teaching and doing, for example, being energy efficient, making the most of our resources, recycling, and protecting the environment.
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