Projects

We built new garden boxes for our vegetable gardens. Thank you to Home Depot and Jerrys Hardware for donating the materials needed!

We hosted a thrift exchange where students donated their gently used clothes and pottery and we sold them during lunch and in our media center on the weekend. We made $300 which will go to funding our gardens. Thanks to everyone who donated and volunteered their time!

We had a bonfire at Richardson Nature Center. We made firestarters out of recycled materials, learned how to safely start and extinguish fires, and did team-bonding activities.

In the past we have had bags for compost in every classroom during TJ coffeehouse. Leadership is working with teachers and custodians to re-implement this. 

Our leaders for next year took on their first project and organized a lunch table for Earth Day. They had trivia questions and an option to try sorting the trash. It was a success, and students left the table knowing more about climate change and how it affects us. They did a great job on their first event, we can't wait to see what they accomplish next year!

To celebrate Earth Week we decorated cookies.

Some of our leaders attended the YEA! Youth Climate Justice Summit. There they learned about climate justice and environmental issues. They also were able to hear from a panel of speakers and talk to Alice Mann, our district Senator.

We made posters to hang around our school out of recycled materials.

We discussed current environmental legislation, learned how to contact local legislators, and wrote in support of legislation. 

We had a planning meeting where members shared and voted on their ideas for future meetings.

We made our own paper out of old homework while learning about the importance of recycling.

Earth Corps was joined by Tom Crawford from river watch who showed us how to collect chloride samples and explained why knowing the information is vital to understanding how our actions impact our local ecosystem. 

We made mosaic stepping stones for our unity garden with broken pottery and ceramic tiles. Thanks to everyone who came to the meeting, you did a great job!

We partnered with NHS to mulch our Unity Garden and prepare it for winter. 

We are also working with the art department to feature student sculptures in the garden.  

We used recycled national geographic books to make a zine with information on the environment and sustainability. To print your own copy, use this link.

Every year students buy books assigned to them by their teachers for summer reading. After the summer these books are often never read again. To give them a second life we are working with the librarians to make a free bookshelf where students can put their old required reading books and take new ones for next year. We have approval from the librarians, we are just waiting on a bookshelf and donations of the books. 

The Izaak Walton League Bush Lake Chapter conducts ongoing water quality testing of Bush Lake. This year members of Earth Corps, as well as Kennedy's Green Club, have assisted them in collecting water samples that help determine the clarity & quality of the water in our local lake! We've had fun canoeing and learning about the process of water quality testing! The Izaak Walton League does a lot of great work and if you are interested in helping or learning more about them check out this link! 

The Unity Garden was made in 2021 by Earth Corps members & volunteers with the help of ReWild, a native landscaping and habitat design company. Since then, it has been growing back beautifully each year and we have been taking care of the garden by weeding & watering it! Look out for volunteer opportunities to help us weed.

The vegetable gardens were first made in 2021. This June, at begining of the summer, we weeded and planted our vegetable gardens. We planted many different vegetables including peppers, tomatos, onions, carrots, cucumbers & re-planted mint! There are also zinnia and sunflowers along the edge of the boxes. The veggies grown are then harvested and donated to VEAP!

We held a Thrift Exchange event at Jefferson in order to promote sustainability and buying second-hand. This was also in collaboration with Jefferson's art program selling pottery made by the students. Together we raised about $800 which will be used to make sustainable care packages for unhoused people and funding the art department!

We collaborated with TJ Coffeehouse to promote sustainability by giving out free TJ Coffeehouse tumblers which we filled with coffee and hot chocolate! To get one, students had to write what they'd like to see environmentally changed at Jefferson- some common responses were sorting lunch waste into trash & composting, learning about climate change in our curriculum, and planting more trees on school grounds!

Last year we hosted a tree planting event with Treeplenish to help offset our schools carbon emissions. We celebrated Earth Day by handing out & planting 100+ tree saplings to residents of the Bloomington community!

Earth Corps leaders were interviewed by a Bloomington staff member to create a video that showcases our club's mission all the accomplishments we've had this year. 

Earth Corps leaders Lilly Marohn and Yanyan Zeng were also nominated as Earth Action Heros by City Sustainability Staff and were featured in the August 2020 edition of the Bloomington Briefing. 

This project is advocating for compost bins in the bathrooms, because paper towels can be composted. This will save thousands of paper towels from going to the landfill. 

Status - 3/11/20: compost bins have been installed in all bathrooms that use paper towels!

Our goal is to get involved in the community and help Bloomington become more sustainable. We would like to help plant trees, adopt a storm drain (or more!), plant a rain garden with native plants, and paint a mural at the city's organics drop-off. 

We hope to reduce the amount of trash from TJ coffeehouse by using compostable or resusable cups instead of styrofoam and composting paper donut bags. 

Status - 12/11/19: each classroom will have a paper grocery bag where students can throw their donut bags, as well as compost bins at the coffeehouse. We are working on implementing resuable and compostable cups. We also made a video promoting composting at TJ Coffeehouse! 

This project is helping to get students outside and active in nature. These activities will range from hiking, scavenger hunts, and planting trees. There are numerous benefits to going outside, from physiological healing to social interactions and skills.

Status 12/11/19: some members of Earth Corps attended the Buckthorn Bust. 

Most students don't know or don't care enough to sort their trash. This causes many problems, as contaminated recycling and compost cannot be used. We educate people about this issue to reduce waste in our landfills. 

Status - 12/11/19: we have put up signs encouraging people to compost and recycle. 

Earth Corps has a long-term goal of eliminating plastic utensils from school lunches. The forks used in school are plastic and get thrown away after each use. Metal/reusable forks and spoons will save thousands of plastic forks going to the landfill each year.