WARWICK — Earth Day arrived a little late this year at Warwick Community School, but with enough enthusiasm to make up for the wait.
On May 27, students left their seats to search ponds for critters like baby dragonflies and track down a stuffed bat as part of the school’s second annual Earth Day celebration.
“Listen to your radios. … Move your antenna around and if it gets weaker, follow the strong signal,” Jon Reichard told fifth and sixth graders in the field outside the school.
In small groups, students searched for the ticking signal of a radio transmitter strapped to a stuffed bat using radio receivers and antennas.
According to Reichard, a bat biologist who helped lead research of white-nose syndrome — a fungal disease that has devastated the bat population — the students’ quest resembles his work at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There, he often uses radio transmitters to locate bats’ homes.
“A lot of what I’m doing with the bat work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is desk-bound, so it’s nice to connect and get people enthusiastic about things,” Reichard said as the students followed the radio signal.
The explorers traced the stuffed bat to a birdhouse in the woods, a common hiding spot for the animal, according to Reichard. They then went to the gym, where Nicole Scola and Beth Williams-Breault of the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) presented the school with a banner to recognize its receipt of the Green Ribbon award.
“What’s really special about this particular Earth Day, is out of the entire state, two elementary schools are being recognized for their devotion to the planet, and we now are one of those two schools,” Superintendent Carole Learned-Miller said as the crowd of students, teachers, and a few residents and supporters of the school applauded.
According to DESE, the award recognizes schools that curb their environmental impact and costs, improve students’ health and wellness, and center the environment and sustainability in education.
“I am so impressed with your school and your deep commitment to environmental education,” Williams-Breault said.
“We are very excited to be here to see your school in action,” Scola added. “We want to thank you for the work that the students are doing, the teachers are doing, the town is doing and everyone within the community to make this award happen.”
In the spirit of Earth Day, Principal Stephen Stroud gave Town Coordinator David Young and Warwick Building & Energy Committee Chair Janice Kurkoski plants after highlighting how their commitment to protecting the planet helped shape the school’s foundation.
“The mission and vision of the school and the district is for students to learn in and about nature, and to learn how to really be activists for social justice and the planet,” Learned-Miller said over the phone on Tuesday. “If schools can really have a meaningful focus where students are learning environmentalism on a daily basis, then they’re going to learn to really respect the planet, and they’re also going to learn the skills to help protect it when they’re grown.”
Although the outdoor festivities celebrated Earth Day, activities intertwining nature and education are not an anomaly at Warwick Community School. Lessons often spotlight the “importance of understanding the local flora and fauna of Warwick and the Pioneer Valley region,” and take students outside the classroom, Learned-Miller said.
Stroud and School Committee Chair Diana Noble described this constant in the curriculum as a pillar of the school’s “place-based” approach. Noble said the “appropriately delayed Earth Day” was the “perfect” backdrop for the Green Ribbon award ceremony.
By inviting local experts like Reichard; herpetologist Brad Compton; Meghan Fitzgerald, co-founder of an outdoor education model called Tinkergarten; and Colleen Kelley, who spent 40 years of her career at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment in Amherst, Learned-Miller hopes the scientists’ enthusiasm will inspire the students to carry the school’s environmentalism into their futures.
“They can see if they continue down this path of learning and really being advocates for the planet, there are some really exciting jobs that they can have where they can use that know-how and passion,” Learned-Miller said.
Besides the outdoor lessons, the school also ran an Earth Day plant sale to raise money for a new playground and “nature discovery yard,” a project set to start construction this summer.
Fitzgerald, who is also the founding president of the Warwick Community School Foundation, explained with a smile, “Every day is Earth Day at a school like this.”
