Highlands Elementary Goes Green

“There are a lot of things we’re doing...it’s almost hard to list them all,” Principal Peter Hodne said, referring to the green efforts at his school.

And so it should be, Principal Hodne. So it should be.

Highlands Elementary can serve as an example for other schools and for the rest of us, with an environmental focus from the classroom to the playground and beyond. 

“It’s the right thing to do and the kids are very excited about it,” Hodne said.

A basic tenet of any environmentally minded person or establishment, Highlands believes in the importance of recycling. Going beyond the standard recycling program, though, the lunchrooms and classrooms also offer organics recycling, or composting, greatly reducing the school’s waste. 

Highlands even goes so far as to recycle the un-recyclable. Through an innovative company called TerraCycle, Highlands helps turn things that would otherwise be filling up landfills–like potato chip bags and juice boxes–into new items like fences, benches and recycling bins. Clever, huh? Some dedicated Highlands students even volunteer their recess time to collect accepted materials for TerraCycle from other classrooms.   

Inside of the school, motion detectors for lights have been installed to reduce wasted energy.

Outside the school, Highlands boasts an outdoor learning and natural play area as well as a rain garden. Funding for the rain garden came in part from a grant from Nine Mile Creek Watershed District. 

Overall, Hodne said the results have been impressive. In just the last few years, the school has reduced the amount of its daily garbage by 80 percent, going from five large garbage containers to only one. But they’re not stopping there. Hodne said the goal is to get classroom waste as close to non-existent as possible, with an ongoing challenge titled “How low can you go?”

Hodne said parents at the school have been supportive of the environment of environmental concern, if you will, that’s been created at Highlands. In fact, the Highlands PTO was instrumental in creating both the outdoor learning and natural play area and the rain garden, providing $50,000 for the former.

The efforts at Highlands are not going unnoticed. Highlands recently won the “My 29 Think Green Award,” beating out nearly 50 other schools in the metro area who also applied for the award. WFTC-TV My 29 and the Minnesota Timberwolves honored Highlands with $1,000, a trophy and Timberwolves tickets. The Edina City Council will also be recognizing Highlands for its green efforts during the City Council meeting on May 3. 

Accolades are always nice, but Hodne said the environmental focus at Highlands is simply part of the school’s identity.

“It’s who our school is,” he said.