Recycling

Rock Hill High School in Rock Hill, SC, is a

Green Steps School!

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Recycling
     > Paper
     > Bottles
     > Books

Composting
     > Conventional
     > Vermiculture
       > BSF
       > Bokashi

Plants in the Classroom

Succession

Conserve: Recycling

Paper is collected from classrooms every week by students.....
Drink bottles (aluminum, plastic, and glass) are collected in large containers throughout the campus as well as in each classroom, then gathered weekly.
Any discarded bound material (old books)
are collected for our county to pick up and recycle
once a semester...

This student led initiative has, as of May 2012, completed its tenth consecutive successful semester! A big thanks to the classes that have involved themselves with such a noble service. What an example you have set! Ms. Gramuska's classes have done an exceptional job of collecting on Thursdays from the entire school. Just for the school year of 2011-2012, RHHS has collected 4.5 TONS of recyclable paper!

Restore: Forestry

Do you know what happens when a piece of property is allowed to "revert back to nature?" That is, if you quit mowing it, or keeping it paved or built on or whatever you would do to manipulate it...... just let it go..... what would it look like one year later? Five years later? Fifty years later!? This process is called SUCCESSION. Rock Hill High School has created a demonstration of this phenomenon right in its own front yard! Students will chronicle each semester how this property is changing; what plants and animals appear, how adjacent property is affected, etc.

The shaded area at the top left is where the Succession Plots will be allowed to grow.

On September 29, 2009, the Biology 1 Honors classes conducted the first field
study of the first plot area. The next day, September 30, 2009, most of the area was tilled.
Later, we roped off the area to establish boundaries. This helps show people that it's not to be walked in or mowed.

Download Field Study Form for succession plot...

Scroll through the following pictures to see who was involved for the first two semesters...

In January 2011, we improved our succession plot by replacing the stake/rope border with a larger zone that is fenced.

A new initiative began in January 2012, with an effort to plant new shade trees around the campus. From January to March, students helped install 89 new trees! See the photos below:

Planting History:

   Photos: Planting large trees on 1/28/12 (elms, maples, oaks)
    Beta Club: Amber Brazzel, Heather Nguyen, Judith Carlisle, Brittany Nguyen, Kim Tipton, Ginny Horne, Rebekah Griggs,
                            Sommer Barber, Nathaniel Brown,

    National Honor Society: Rebecca Chopko, Morgan Jackson, Kathryn Bernard, Anita Brown

    FBLA: Jeffrey Eberspeaker

    Occupational Diploma: Kimberly Foreman

   Other Student Volunteers: Natalie Crain, Austin Cutler

   Green Committee: Bobby Stevens, Glen Gumphrey, Pamela Bird, Karen Cable, Edwina Gramuska

$Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\Planting1.JPG$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\Planting4.JPG$
$Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\Planting3.JPG$

Photos: Planting of bare root zelkovas and birches, 3/10/12,
Clark Beavans (city forester), Bobby Stevens (Green Committee), Austin Cutler
Beta Club: Nick and Luke Walker, Ginny Horne, Mel Ustanik

$Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12a.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12b.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12d bundles.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12e Luke-NickWalker.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12e Luke-NickWalkerB.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12f AustinCutler.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12g tree-close.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12h birches.bmp$ $Description: C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Desktop\Blankenship 1-20-12\My Pictures\RHHS Trees\3-10-12i zelkovas.bmp$

Protect: Water

With the help of a "Champions of the Environment" grant from DHEC in the fall of 2010, we were able to initiate another conservation effort on the campus of RHHS. Beside the reforestation area (succession plots above) runs a nice creek. By fencing off a zone on either side of the 380' length of the creek, we hope to encourage vegetation and new animal species to flourish. This will aid in erosion reduction and improved water purification. This "wetland" area includes fencing, signage, and a new bridge over the creek. A BIG "Thank You" goes to Zack Miller, a RHHS freshman who graciously took on the installation of this endeavor as an Eagle Scout project in January 2011. With the help of some of his friends and family, the project has advanced beautifully.

Champions of the Environment shot a commercial spot about our project. It is airing in Columbia and Charleston. Download it HERE.

The project called for the expansion of the succession plots (orange) along with the fencing off of the creek bed (blue). Another new bridge (red) will accommodate the cross-country team as well as others.

This creek is home to various species of plants, animals, protists, algae, etc.
With this project, we hope to increase that diversity as well as clean the water.

Zack, with help from his dad, Mike, drills for the first fence post.

The work goes faster when help arrives...

Comporium Communications graciously donated 3 large telephone poles for our new bridge.

Zack gets the new bridge started on a good footing...

Other noble endeavors we have undertaken:

Composting

The natural decomposition of organic matter is essential for nutrients to be returned to the soil for plants and other organisms to use. Bacteria are the workhorse of this process. This vital function of nature can be harnessed and used quite efficiently with just a little education on how to expedite the process. The following sources are recommended:

Vermiculture: Other organisms like to get in on the eating, too. Along with the regular composting material like food scraps, red wiggler worms (Eisenia foetida) just love to eat paper. Yes, paper. Newspaper and cardboard are their favorite! Their castings, combined with the decomposed organic matter, create the best garden soil nature can provide. Read about them here:

Constructing our own worm bins:

At the beginning of the fall 2009 semester, students in groups of about 5 started their own worm bins, with a plastic tub, strips of wet newspaper, a smidgen of soil, a few food scraps, and about a pound of red wigglers. Throughout the semester, they have been keeping care of the worms, adding scraps of food to vary the worms' diet. Now that the semester is almost over, we're going to do two things:
a) harvest our worms to find out which groups have created the best environment for the most reproduction (who has the most worms!)
b) collect our compost to use in the potting up of rooted houseplants we began at the beginning of the semester. (see below)

On December 17th, we harvested our worms and collected the compost material.

Black Soldier Fly: Now we're talking about a critter with a serious appetite for garbage! The larvae of this beneficial fly (Hermetia illucens) can reduce a pile of vegetation scraps by 95%. Not only that, but the presence of this species can actually drive away nuisance flies. The life cycle is fascinating for these creatures. The adults live only about a week and don't even have mouth parts. They just mate, lay eggs, and die. It's the larval stage that does the work...
Oh yes....These larvae are quite marketable. You could make some money selling these masses of protein and fat to feed fish, poultry, and other wildlife. They can be frozen and kept for later use.

Bokashi: Problem: When you read enough about composting, one warning keeps popping up...don't put any meats, cheeses, etc. into your compost bin! Why? Because it takes a long time for these materials to decompose. In the interim they will become putrid and quite malodorous. Also, unwanted pests and vermin will be attracted to it.

Solution? Dr. Teuro Higa developed a way to "ferment" these type products, making it suitable to then compost. Learn about good microbes/bad microbes and how you can do this yourself. My friend at VermiDirt Farms has the scoop (and starter cultures). Use a standard 5 gal. bucket. A Gamma Seal lid makes opening/closing easy while maintaining and airtight anaerobic environment.

Plants in the Classroom

To add plants to more classrooms in our school, we propagated houseplants during the fall 2009 semester.
They were grown under grow lights in the back of our class. We used recycled vegetable cans from our cafeteria and from home, along with the compost from our worm bins, to pot up these plants and give to the teachers at RHHS. This helped provide some greenery along with some fresh oxygen in the classrooms!

Our focus turned from clean air to clean food in the spring 2010 semester. Students grew their own vegetables from seed and took home.