The brainchild of Amy Helgeson, Kindergarten science teacher, Jenn Pentecost, Kindergarten art teacher, and Jessica Reich, Kindergarten homeroom teacher, this capstone sets the stage for the Class of 2036 to lead the way towards a more sustainable Lower School and Nightingale.

“We’ve seen in the kitchen and other parts of the school where they’ve ramped up sustainability efforts—things like not using as much plastic and bringing in composting. So the Kindergarten students will be able to take that knowledge and way of doing things, add in their approach to play, and keep moving forward. I think they really do understand that the planet is in trouble, and while they don’t necessarily feel like the weight is on them to fix it, they do have a generation of parents who are aware of it and talk to them about it,” Ms. Reich noted.

Their inaugural sustainability exercise included a multi-step collaboration with Teaching Beyond the Square, a nonprofit based in New York City which aims to improve the quality of early childhood education. At the start of the year, Teaching Beyond the Square brought their “materials trailer” to Nightingale and every Kindergarten student went “shopping” for recycled objects. They were given free reign to browse the very full shelves of the trailer and instructed to collect five objects each that intrigued them. Through this experience, Teaching Beyond the Square encourages the idea of ownership of play materials and reinforces how important it is to reuse materials and use imagination to repurpose objects in new ways. A building block of sustainability, this philosophy will be revisited through the school year.

After returning upstairs, students gathered in a circle around their selected materials and had the opportunity to sort through them and make observations about what they had collected. Each student was asked to describe an object using color, shape, and material for classmates to find. Finally, the students were then able to dig into the materials to create, storytell, collaborate, and imagine with one another. An important note: glue and tape are never used so that the materials can be used multiple times.

Seeing the students’ imagination run wild was especially rewarding, as they built entire worlds and scenarios out of bottle caps, corks, paper clips, buttons, and more. Ms. Helgeson noticed that students made a pulley before they had learned about simple machines in science class!

“We really want to see the Kindergarten take the lead in this and show the rest of the school how to do it. They play with these materials the best because their brains just work differently—it’s incredible to observe,” Ms. Pentecost said.

Ms. Reich continued, “If a student can choose to do that in play, it makes you wonder what can we do in other areas that make us a more sustainable school?”

Moving forward, the materials that the class collected will live in the classroom and the students will learn what it looks like to store them in a meaningful way. They’ll continue to work and play with them throughout the year—a perfect example of sustainability.

In science with Ms. Helgeson, students spent the entirety of their first semester learning about the differences between climate and weather, their impact on the future health of the earth, and how sustainable practices both big and small can make a difference. “I want our students to be future stewards of the Earth. By starting these practices earlier, it helps to ensure a more sustainable future,” Ms. Helgeson said.

Through hands-on learning, students carried out experiments and challenges to reinforce the realities of climate change. In one class, they were tasked with building a house in a rainy climate. A tissue was placed inside their structure and their goal was to keep the tissue dry after spraying water over the top of it for two minutes. Next up, students were introduced to the greenhouse gasses and the effect they have on creating a warmer climate. Their challenge at that time was to build a house that could keep an ice cube from melting inside when heated with a hairdryer. 

“Now more than ever it is key to give students the facts about climate change. Using hands-on activities helps our Kindergarten scientists understand why it is taking place and why it matters," Ms. Helgeson said.

Their studies continued with learning about the impact that an increasingly warmer climate has on wildlife near the ice caps, what the water cycle is and how climate change has increased the probability of flooding, and how wind turbines can help reduce global warming. Using pinwheels, a final challenge asked them to determine where on the Nightingale rooftop wind turbines could be constructed to create energy for the school to use. To officially complete the unit, the Kindergarten class created a video with advice for Nightingale community members on how they can live more sustainably and contribute towards protecting a very fragile planet Earth. Some of their advice included, planting trees, composting food scraps, and drinking from reusable water bottles.