The Waste Stops Here at Altamont Creek Elementary

From LVJUSD:Part of the landscape of the Altamont Creek Elementary campus is a view of the windmills – a symbol of renewable energy and conservation; a feature that works with the natural energy of its environment and focuses it on the betterment of those around it. In view of the windmills, within the walls of the cafeteria, students and staff at Altamont Creek are doing something similar – focusing their natural energy and goodwill toward making the school greener and cleaner.

Through the commitment of the school’s students and science teacher Fenna Gatty, Altamont Creek has paved the way for the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District (LVJUSD) to partner with the Oakland-based StopWaste, a public agency dedicated to reducing waste and increasing efficiency in resource management. StopWaste also works with the Oakland Unified School District, where it piloted the Food Share program, which LVJUSD started implementing in all its schools this year. Students at Altamont have already taken to the new food share table, which has become an unofficial watercooler of sorts, where students like to gather to share food, find more fruits and vegetables, and interact.

Recently, Livermore and Oakland schools were awarded a CalRecycle Food Waste Prevention and Rescue Grant, through their partnership with StopWaste, which will allow for more resources to develop the infrastructure within schools to increase efficiency and ensure food goes where it is needed – to students and to their community. “We identified food waste as one of the major issues in the U.S.,” said Gatty. “As a school and community, we were invested in finding a solution.”

With food share tables, students can leave uneaten and unopened cafeteria food for others to enjoy rather than throwing it out. Hugo Gregoire, StopWaste’s School Sustainability Associate working with LVJUSD said, “Students are very interested in the table. They are taking advantage of the food available to them, shared by their school. It’s also a visual indicator to them, as food piles up, of how much might have been thrown out before. It gives them something to think about, and a concrete problem to work on.”

Altamont Creek’s Green Council, a student leadership group led by Gatty, has been trained in categorizing and auditing the school’s waste, and recently worked with LVJUSD’s Campus Catering Department to eliminate packaging for their utensils. Now, Altamont Creek’s cafeteria is equipped with dispensers at the front of the line for utensils and napkins. These efforts represent the students’ commitment to improving their school, as well as how they are leveraging their education, energy, and natural curiosity to make real-world changes.

Gatty is committed to developing citizen scientists as she teaches, tying into her lessons the responsibility of students as members of their community – at school, at home, and the entire world around them. The StopWaste initiatives work into the science curriculum across grade levels – from making observations in nature, tracking data, and studies of decomposition and life cycles. “I always say I’m not just teaching science,” she said. “I’m teaching them to be scientists. As citizens of their community, they can learn to look at their surroundings scientifically right now, to observe and collect data.”

Conservation and a commitment to community has been built into the culture at Altamont for years, and everyone has been pitching in. Students have been taking their roles as citizen scientists seriously, collecting data and auditing landfill waste both at school and at home. The staff at the school has stepped up as well. Head Custodian Patrick Mulrooney oversees the distribution of waste during lunch to ensure leftovers properly end up in compost, recycling, or landfill bins. Gregoire has developed a partnership with the cafeteria staff to hear feedback and to develop strategies together.

As students and staff become more familiar with their roles in conservation and resource management, what they learn will spread from classroom to classroom and throughout the community. Each school at LVJUSD practices conservation in various levels, and the new food share tables are only one step toward sparking new conversations and strategies to be more conscious of their impact on the environment. They are micro-communities in themselves, where students learn that they have the ability to make a difference. Already, the school’s collective energy for observing, learning, and acting is propelling new ideas and sparking change.

Photos courtesy LVJUSD