Sustainability efforts on The Seven Hills campus
By: Zoe Clemens
Starting last spring, Mr. Wabler led some upper school students on a short hike to clean up and improve the outdoor classroom to make it a fit learning space.
The outdoor classroom, which is down past the baseball field by the creek, has been and is still being worked on. This area will be a valuable resource for outdoor classes.
Over twenty years ago, the area was more of a hiking area with the occasional class as well. Sadly, people forgot about the space, and it became overgrown and infested with the invasive species called honeysuckle.
One of the first things the upper students did was to remove the honeysuckle near the roots. They also refurbished some of the steps because they were really old, making it hard to get down to the creek. This semester, upper students are working on furniture to make the space seem more approachable for students and faculty.
Mr. Wabler, who is leading the sustainability efforts at Seven Hills said, “We want that to be more of a culture here.” He was referring to having regular classes and spending time outdoors on a daily basis to make our school more invested in nature.
One of the long-term goals of this project is to have students thinking about sustainability when they leave Seven Hills for college. Mrs. Suer, head of the Passion Planet Club in the middle school, also shares an interest in making our school more sustainable. “Every seven years we change our principles, strategic plan,” said Mrs. Suer during our interview. Part of the strategic plan is to make our school more sustainable.
The outdoor classroom is part of the school wide sustainability effort after last year’s audit results from the Nature Center.
Megan Sheerin-Day, a junior in the upper school, is very involved in the sustainblility efforts “From the summaries (of the audit) we were sent, the main area we need to focus on at Seven Hills is utilizing our spaces,” said Megan Sheerin-Day during our Interview. This applies to the outdoor classroom especially because it is so pretty and has great potential.
“We can improve in almost every category,” said Mr. Wabler, when talking about how our school did on the audit. Seven Hills is currently doing the minimum and the future goal for the sustainability effort is to change that. In addition to the outdoor classroom, we have a school wide composting program, and the Lotspeich renovations plan to turn the area where the old building was into a green space and possibly another outdoor classroom. Furthermore, Mr. Wabler expressed that a nature trail would be a possible idea for the future.
”We have a beautiful campus here at Seven Hills and I think our goal is to take advantage of that,” said Megan Sheerin Day while talking about the Upper School’s sustainability efforts and programs.
The outdoor classroom is a beautiful space that deserves to be used and appreciated to its full potential.