Muskegon Montessori Academy for Environmental Change Has Earned Emerald Status for the 2023-2024 School Year
MMAEC participated in the 2023-2024 school year Michigan Green Schools initiative! Though our foundation is built upon environmental efforts, we’ve dedicated over years to ensure our students are doing their part for our planet. In order to become a Green School, a school and its students must perform a required number of activities to prove their efforts.
We are proud to say that we reached Emerald status in the 2023-2024 school year!
Michigan Green Schools is a non-profit 501(c)3 agency dedicated to assisting all Michigan schools – public and private – achieve environmental goals which include protecting the air, land, water and animals of our state along with world outreach through good ecological practices and the teaching of educational stewardship of students pre-kindergarten through senior high school.
Check out our environmental efforts for the 2023-2024 school year!
Recycling
MMAEC Recycles the following items: Paper, plastic, glass, cardboard and metal cans.
Our school has recycling stations in each classroom for paper, plastic and glass. In addition, we have an area to break down cardboard and collect metal cans for deposit returns. Our eco-club's recycling crew, a group of 15 students, are responsible for collecting the recycling each Wednesday to bring out to the dumpster. They sort cans and cardboard into their proper locations and are led by the custodian and environmental teacher for this special responsibility.
We enforce a waste-free lunch program at our school.
Out mission as an environmental school helps focus our attention on our use of single-use containers found in student meals. Students rinse and save milk cartons to be used as pots for our greenhouse seedlings. We also partner with a local community garden to compost organic waste, and have previously composted on-site, temporarily halted due to the school's recent renovation project.
Energy
We implemented a school energy-saving program at our building.
Having just renovated a wing of the school building this year, we maximize our energy efficiency by lowering ceilings, adding a new heat source and thermostat to every class no longer rely on an outdate boiler to warm our school.
We offer at least one teaching unit on alternative energy, also sponsoring an alternative energy project in the classroom.
Students focused on deepening the conversation on renewable energy sources by guiding themselves through topics as they prepare book reports about "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind." These discussions were taken home during our summer school program where students built solar ovens and assembled solar and wind power kits to power a model home.
Environmental Protection
We participate in promoting the health of the Great Lakes watershed.
We worked with the Michigan DNR to understand the importance of salmon in Lake Michigan and the rivers they spawn in. They provided us with beautiful maps illustrating each of the watersheds in our state and tons of resources to accompany the eggs as students watched them grow in the classroom. Each week the Eco-Club took care of the tank and were given the chance to attend the release on a field trip to a farm on the White River with the DNR.
Our school established and maintained a natural garden project with native plants.
We take pride in getting students' hands into the soil at important to their work. We use our greenhouses and garden beds to ensure that our students get their hands dirty, and have a whole seed library of both native and other species for students to select for planting.
Miscellaneous Activities
MMAEC established a student organization that participates in environmental activities.
We established the Eco-Club this year, a mixed-age group of kids that meet once a week. Each day a different group meets to study a different topic. Our salmon crew meets on Monday, our recycling program meets on Wednesday, on Thursdays we plant, maintain and harvest our school's hydroponic tower and on Fridays we meet to research independent environment topics ranging from incubating eggs to making paper-clay recipes.
We coordinated an exchange to collect use or unwanted items within the school for repurpose.
We hold an annual end-of-year yard sale for families to donate and swap unwanted goods. We also have a large collection of school uniforms, coats and shoes that have been donated by families whose children have outgrown the items. These uniforms and outerwear are made available for free to any child in need.