Exciting hands-on activities, engaged learning, and meaningful service was completed by our students, faculty, staff and extended community during our Earth Day celebration.

Activities began in grades 1-3 as students and faculty welcomed the day with a special Native American song and dance to celebrate the occasion. The children broke up onto mixed-age groups for unique Earth Day activities. Younger children made beads from recycled paper, and sunflower seed balls, made by storing groups of seeds inside clay spheres, to be planted in next week’s gardening classes. Meanwhile, the 6th – 9th graders gathered in Bonner Hall to for a presentation from the Wildlife Conservation Society that focused local populations of sharks and eels, and the various conservation efforts being taken to care for the animals.

Later that morning, parents, faculty, and students were invited to visit our School’s inaugural Eco-Fair. The Eco-Fair featured special environmental projects by students in grades 4-8 that were displayed in the Student Room and Courtyard. The fair hosted a wide variety of environmentally themed projects, such as ecosystem dioramas, research on green products, explorations of environmentally safe alternatives, sustainable fashion, tools made from recycled waste, and even handmade cardboard toys the children made themselves. The fair allowed the students to showcase all they had learned and some of the work they have been doing all year to promote environmental awareness.

While our 9th grade and lower school students were participating in the activities mentioned above, our 10th – 12th graders went off-campus to dedicate their day the improvement of the greater Long Island community. The 10th grade spent their day at the Brookside Nature Preserve in Baldwin where they helped clean up the preserve. The 11th grade meanwhile visited Smith Pond in Rockville Centre, where they assisted the local Alewife fish and eel populations reach their natural spawning grounds. Finally, the 12th grade visited Caumsett State Park where they, along with two naturalists, traveled along Caumsett’s north shore beach to catalog the beach clean-up.

In working groups led by our 9th graders, Lower School students, faculty, and staff cared for and beautified our School grounds. Students planted trees & flowers, cleared winter debris, fertilized the soil, and even made a yummy salad with ingredients grown in our very own garden. It was a truly meaningful community activity as everyone came together to make our grounds a healthier and more beautiful place for all of us to enjoy. The day concluded with music and treats in the courtyard.

Thank you to all who gave their time to make Earth Day 2019 a success. See photos below.