Sustainability in the Curriculum

Outdoor Classroom Environments in Lower School

• Renovated in 2013, the outdoor classroom features a green roof playhouse and a variety of gardens and planting spaces, and extends scientific learning to the outdoors. The Green Roof Playhouse, designed especially for WT’s outdoor classroom, was one of two schools nationally to receive a Commendation of Excellence by the Centiva Green School Innovation Grant.
• “Kinder-gardeners” Cultivate a Sustainable Harvest in the Vegetable Garden: Chef Andrew worked alongside the Kindergarten class, guiding students through the process of planting an array of fruits, vegetables, and herbs in WT’s Vegetable Garden. A recent article on Food Management highlighted WT’s efforts to incorporate the harvest from the garden to WT’s lunch menu as well as its efforts to connect the Kindergarten’s outdoor gardening to their classroom education.

Sample Curricular Programs

Lower School’s Focus on Systems Thinking: A goal of the Lower School at WT is to ensure that students leave their elementary years with an understanding of the interconnectedness of systems. Beginning in Pre-K, where children learn that most things are made up of parts, through fifth grade, where they begin to understand how systems themselves are interconnected, students at WT explore the interdependence and complexities of communities, machines, cultures, ecosystems, and our world.

In Kindergarten, science education is focused on the theme of “growing.” This includes substantial time learning about and experimenting with the growing cycle of plants. Students learn through hands-on activities that include planting and nurturing the seedlings for WT’s Vegetable Garden. As the new outdoor classroom takes shape at WT, this focus on growth will expand to understanding the impact that plants have on the environment, through planting and maintaining a green roof on the Green Roof Playhouse.

Watersheds in Fifth Grade: A two-month unit on watersheds includes study of the water cycle, how to test water quality, food chains, and webs that depend on the local watershed. Students take trips to ALCOSAN and on the Riverquest research boat, where they take water samples on the river. Through a City as Our Campus partnership with Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, students work in Frick Park to assess biological and chemical water quality.

Overnight trips in Fourth and Fifth Grade provide opportunities for immersion in the natural world. Fourth graders travel to Lutherlyn, a 660-acre environmental center, for an overnight environmental education program. Fifth graders travel to The Mountain Institute as a culmination of their Lower School years.

Middle School Science focuses on many aspects of the environment, including insects and ecology; weather, atmosphere, and climate change; water quality and water pollution, global environmental problems, energy systems, and oceans.

Middle School Leadership Academy: By applying themselves to real-world situations, witnessing the difference they can make, and reflecting upon the impact they can have, Middle School students become community contributors through the Leadership Academy. Each class in the Middle School chooses a cause to support over the course of three years. The Class of 2018 selected sustainability, and has been working with four local organizations: GASP (Group Against Smog and Pollution); GTECH (Growth Through Energy and Community Health); the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy; and ALCOSAN (Allegheny County Sanitary Authority). By visiting with and learning from these organizations, students determined that they could serve as an educational resource on various ways citizens can preserve and care for their local environment. They have developed and produced a number of educational videos for ALCOSAN, heightened environmental awareness throughout the WT community on Earth Day with an Own Clothes Day and reusable water bottle fundraiser to benefit GTECH, which turns blighted vacant lots into thriving community green and garden spaces, among other initiatives. And, they are developing an educational board game for Lower School students. As eighth graders, they plan to work with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy to rebuild the Frick Environmental Center and to build a green bus shelter near the corner of Forbes and Braddock Avenues – the second such shelter in Pittsburgh.