Middle schools win award
for environmental efforts
By linda denicola
Staff Writer
FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP — Nothing goes to waste at the township’s two middle schools and both the Barkalow and Eisenhower middle schools received awards last week for their solid waste management programs.
The awards from the Monmouth County Solid Waste Advisory Council were in the "Collaborative" category and were for excellence in waste reduction and organic alternatives. The "Collaborative" category recognizes cooperative effort in sold waste management between private and public entities.
Pat Eiseman, a teacher in the academic enrichment program for both middle schools, heads the project called Cooperative Compost Connection (CCC) and nominated Dorian Sano, Sodexho Food Service director, and her staff at the two schools. Their ultimate goal is to involve the five elementary schools in the K-8 district in composting their lunchroom waste and to develop in students a better understanding of their role in maintaining a healthy watershed.
She credits the cooperation, support, creativity and willingness to make it work of the Sodexho staff as the sole reason for the success of the effort.
"Their support has enabled us to go more in depth with the experiments in our garden project as part of our watershed awareness curriculum," Eiseman said in her nomination letter.
Eiseman said the lunchroom compost component is one of the most crucial and important in the survival and growth of the program.
"In addition to the composting of lunchroom waste in our Earth Machine, we also feed the scraps to the worms in our multi-level worm bin to create vermicompost for use in experiments. This project is a win/win situation for all involved. It has meshed with an endeavor that has been around for three decades and has brought it to a new level of productivity," she said.
The school district has been practicing a holistic, many-faceted approach toward being a steward of the environment for 30 years, she explained. Students have always designed and carried out plant experiments with organic alternatives to chemical fertilizers and pesticides in a Land Stewardship Program, but one year ago, a Water Stewardship Program was instituted. Both are service learning projects whereby students gain experience and education while performing a community service, she said.
According to Eiseman, outdoor garden experiments begin during winter as indoor experiments using vegetable seeds with recycled water and soda bottles or formed newspaper as pots. Summer garden produce resulting from these experiments are harvested once a week and brought to the Open Door food pantry in Freehold Borough and the Samaritan Center in Englishtown.
Students also perform chemical and biological monitoring at Lake Topanemus, Pond Road, to track the health of the water. The Lake Topanemus Commission is involved in following these endeavors. The middle school lunchrooms reduce their solid waste, the gifted math and science classes have real-life applications for their experiments and data recording, and watershed-friendly practices are assimilated into the community on a grassroots level.
In addition, food service workers learn about composting as they sort what food scraps can be used, and students and staff involved in the project pass information along to others through student-created brochures and teacher workshops.
Eiseman has given workshops at the New Jersey Science Teachers Association, the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics regional conference in Massachusetts, the Alliance of New Jersey Environmental Education, Monmouth Coastal Watersheds seminar for educators, Discrete Mathematics Leadership Institute through Rutgers University and professional development for the Oceanport schools and the Middletown high schools.