Walkersville, Catoctin teach ‘green' lessons

High school classes focus on students' roles in helping Frederick County's regional environment

They do it, in part, by getting students to open their eyes to the world around them, right here in Frederick County.

At Catoctin High School, a grouping of native plants in an "ozone garden" will for the first time this year show students the effects of air pollution. The garden, planted about 18 months ago next to the bus lane, will change under the effect of bus exhaust.

"You see these big yellow spots on the leaves," said April Wells, 44, Catoctin High's AP environmental science teacher for 10 years. Wells also leads a program unique to the school, called the Environmental Academy, advises the Save Our Mother Earth [SOME] Club, and coaches the Envirothon team.

She also drives a Toyota Prius – a hybrid vehicle – and happily shows it to her students. Rising fuel prices turned into a teachable moment for Wells' students last year, as they studied long-term data on oil prices, availability and consumption.

"There's been a lot of things going on in the last few years. Now it's getting to be more about what things cost, how much it costs to save energy versus doing it to help the environment," Wells said. "We definitely talk about that."

Wells, along with agriculture instructors Bob Beavan and Diane Ogg at Catoctin High, runs hands-on projects related to environmental science. A larger group at Walkersville High School tries a similar approach. In the classroom and outside, the mostly science or agriculture teachers who collaborate informally on their efforts show students that they can make a difference.

"These are their formative years," said Tony Williams, 28, an environmental science teacher at Walkersville High. "Hopefully what they learn now will be something that will be part of their [lives] for the rest of their lives."

Williams, entering his second year at the school, plans to draw on his summer work as a science consultant and instruct his students on testing the school's water supply and air quality. His students should be motivated – they'll certainly remember the month last school year when they had to use hand-washing stations instead of bathroom sinks because of a manure spill from a local cattle farm.

"A lot of our students still come from farming families," Williams said.

At Walkersville High, Williams, Barry Burch, 45, the transition education coordinator, Sue Faibisch, 38, AP environmental science teacher, Environmental Club advisor and, with Burch, co-advisor of the Envirothon team, and science teachers Scott McIntosh and Amber McCauley, 26, lead green efforts.

"Making it hit home" is part of making environmental awareness appealing to students, Faibisch said last week.

Faibisch has taken the lead in coordinating recycling efforts at Walkersville High. Participating teachers collect recyclables – paper and plastic – in their classrooms. Students in the Environmental Club compile the goods, and Faibisch then delivers the load to the county's Mount Pleasant drop-off point in her truck.

This year, the school hopes to ramp up its recycling efforts and keep track of how much students recycle. Walkersville High also has two student-made composting bins, plans for a fitness trail along the tree line surrounding the school and a proposal for an outdoor classroom in the works.

Such initiatives have helped lead the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education to recognize the two northern Frederick County high schools as Maryland Green Schools. The statewide program is "a holistic, integrated approach to authentic learning that incorporates local environmental issue investigation and professional development with environmental best management practices and community stewardship," according to the association's Web site.

Two other Frederick County schools are Maryland Green Schools: Thurmont Middle School and Walkersville Elementary School.

Students face

‘An Inconvenient Truth'

Both Wells and Faibisch use "An Inconvenient Truth," the 2006 documentary on Al Gore's campaign to raise the alarm about global warming, as a teaching tool in AP Environmental Science classes.

The lesson cannot end when the screen goes dark, Wells said – students would be jarred out of believing that small, local projects, such as the short nature trail that Catoctin High students created in 2000 through a stand of trees on campus, have any effect on the world.

"The first time I showed it, they were almost overwhelmed that there was not anything they could do, that it was such a big issue," Wells said. In her class, a discussion that takes in the broader history of the environmental movement soon follows the film, Wells said, with the aim of lessening its impact.

"If they just see all the bad, what good is that?" Faibisch said. "But when we give them options, ‘Here's what we can do as a community, what we can do as individuals,' then it empowers them, and that's where your hope comes. That's why I teach."