CT Green Scene

Fairfield Jesuits Go Green

by Eileen Weber

On Tuesday, Fairfield University’s Jesuits proudly displayed their new pad. It is a space that is simultaneously a residence, a community center, and a tribute to the environment.

Designed by New Haven architecture firm Gray Organschi, the building is constructed from metal, wood, glass and concrete. Much of the material is either recycled or sustainable. The design team, married couple Elizabeth Gray and Alan Organschi, worked for several months with the school’s Jesuit staff to create a place that met their needs and reflected modern ideals.

The two-story, 22,000 square foot residence boasts a closed loop geothermal heating and cooling system 400 feet underground, a roof garden that can absorb up to 95% of rainfall, and sustainable bamboo flooring.

But that’s not the coolest part. None of the surrounding trees were disturbed in construction, save one diseased and dying beech tree. Instead of scrapping it, the tree was locally milled and a good portion of it is hanging in the Great Room.

“For something that was considered waste,” said Organschi, “we were able to make it into something useful. The limbs were milled and joined to make a screen and an altar that will be put in place in a couple of weeks.”

If They're Always Sad, Who Cares When Authors Speak of Food?

by James Simpkins

I realize that the very title of my article this week may be an open invitation for the snarky reader who may want to take the cheap shot for the clear path to the ironic it leaves open. You know what? Go ahead. After the past couple days, I think food writers may deserve it every now and then…especially novelists. 

This past Monday at the Instituto de Cervantes in New York City Four European writers: Christoph Peters (Germany), Agnès Desarthe (France), Jesús Ruiz Mantilla (Spain) and Clara Sereni (Italy) came together for an evening of readings and discussion called "Eat Your Words: When Authors Speak of Food", moderated by highly acclaimed American writer Mark Kurlansky, a guy who has written a lot of books I won’t bother to name aside from Salt. Being someone who writes about food (and who lives a scant two hours from NYC) I thought I would go. Besides the lovely wine and passed hors d’oeuvres that were served in the garden and the Spanish government’s gorgeous real estate on 49^th and 3^rd, the event did next to nothing to inspire me, let alone inspire me to buy anyone’s book. It turns out these ‘paperback writers’ are based more on Proust than Lear, and that, in the opinion of this writer, is not a good thing.

Learn By Doing

by Eileen Weber

Many of the farms in this state have been sold off to build housing developments. Some farms that are hundreds of years old have fallow fields from lack of use. Then there are the farms that serve a greater purpose: Educating our children.

Ambler Farm in Wilton is one of them. For the last few years, their educational programs for elementary and middle school children have grown. Ann Bell, President of the Friends of Ambler Farm, an organization that supports the farm and its historic buildings, said these kids are getting the full farm experience. They are taught how to run a farm from collecting eggs to gardening organically to learning how to cook with the food they grow.

Since the Town of Wilton purchased the land in 1999 after the death of Betty Ambler, the last original owner, Bell said there has been great support in making the farm a big part of the community. Not only do they have an ongoing partnership with the school system, but they also sell their fresh produce and maple syrup at their own farm stand as well as at the town’s farmers’ market. Next Sunday, they will have Ambler Farm Day with hayrides and pumpkin tossing.

Other farms in the state have also turned to education as a way to stay a vibrant part of their communities. There is Terra Firma Farm in Stonington, New Pond Farm in West Redding, and Auer Farm in Bloomfield. Each of them has their own educational programs for school-aged children to teach them about life on a farm. From math to science to art, there’s something for everyone.

Art of Bee Wrangling

by Melissa Waldron Lehner
Fertile Ground USA

Bees have been seein' red these days. Well, actually they can't see the color red, Ted Jones explains, they only see black. But they have been getting pretty ornery from all the rain here in Connecticut. While picking up some eggs, I had the pleasure of running into Ted, expert bee-wrangler, owner of Jones’ Apiaries in Farmington, Connecticut, and president of Connecticut Beekeepers who was at Hard Rain Farm in Burlington with his son to smoke out some bees. Hard Rain Farm rents 10 of his hives to pollinate the myriad of apples, kale, eggplant, herbs and other vegetables and fruits that grow on the 4 acres of well managed farmland.

Today, father and son were out to collect the honey. A thunderstorm had just come through and the sky was bluish-black. Tom eyed the sky and held out his hand for rain, not a welcome thing for bees. “Bees don’t like the rain too much, it’s best to stay away from them.” That’s why Ted was sending in his son to check on the hives. His son, dutifully suited up for what looked like a trip to the moon, had a long-nosed smoker by his side. The smoke apparently sedates the bees and reduces the chance of being stung. Ted explained that a bee’s behavior is triggered by pheromones, or rather, chemical signals which then elicit a response from the bee, a response like stinging for example. “Another thing is, you don’t ever want to go near a beehive with a banana, you know,” says Ted dryly, as if there was a punch line coming. The only punch line is for the poor sucker who peels one back while standing in front of a hive - even one lone bee can wreak havoc. Bananas have an aroma which set off the alarm response and can cause quite a stir of stingers directed at said banana holder. “It could be ugly,” he grimaced.

Only 10% of honeybees remain in the wild. Tom says his business has really picked up nowadays and he has hardly had a day off. “It used to be that you just dropped off the hives at the beginning of the season and then you come to pick them up at the end. But no more.” Now Ted needs to visit the hives every two to three weeks to make sure all is well. “Some get wiped out when farmers spray their crops with all those pesticides, others have been wiped out by disease.”

A Green FROG In Connecticut

by Eileen Weber

The Watkinson School in Hartford, the city’s only independent school founded in 1881, had a ground-breaking for their net-zero science facility on May 27th. San Francisco-based Project FROG designed the school’s Center for Science and Global Citizenship. This school building will be the first of its kind in New England. The construction date is scheduled for next week.

“The building [will be] as smart as the students and teachers in it,” said John Bracker, Watkinson’s Head of School. Some of the key elements in the design are a geothermal heating and cooling system as well as solar panels. Large glass windows will be incorporated into the design to trap in heat in the winter and block it out in the summer. The windows will also provide lots of natural light to cut down on electricity costs.

Bracker said that the school looked into updating its science building about five years ago. But conventional methods were too expensive. When the concept of going green for less money came up, the Board of Trustees gave the go-ahead.

“This will not only augment the way we teach but change the way we teach. The building will be as much a part of the curriculum as any other teaching tools,” said Bracker. In other words, in order for the school to teach about sustainability they have to be sustainable.

Local School Wins Award

by Eileen Weber

The Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School (LOLMS) was recently acknowledged for their green initiatives in the School of Future Design Competition. On May 1st, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and the Council of Education Facility Planners International Foundation (CEFPI) sponsored the event as well as the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the American Institute of Architects along with over 30 associations and private companies. They announced the winners of the competition, which kicks off at the beginning of the school year, in Washington, D.C.

Students from across the country participated in the competition. Given the task to redesign their school in an environmentally friendly way, they were judged on sustainability, technology and community involvement in their projects. The event was part of School Building Week from April 27th through May 1st.

"Successful schools build successful communities." said Sue Robertson, CEFPI president in the company’s press release dated the last day of the competition. "Today's students, tomorrow's green builders, are committed to creating healthy, high performing schools and communities. Let's supply them with all the tools they need to improve the places where children learn. And then, let's really listen to them—because they have some really good ideas!"

Edible School Gardens

by Eileen Weber

We have an epidemic. No, it doesn’t involve an incurable virus or Dustin Hoffman in a Hazmat suit à la Outbreak. However, it does involve kids, their parents, and the schools they attend.

Edible school gardens are growing at a rapid pace. Increasingly, school districts are making the gardens part of their curriculum. The Edible School Gardens Workshop at the Unitarian Church in Westport, sponsored in part by the Westport Green Village Initiative in partnership with Amy Kalafa, founder of Two Angry Moms, featured an expert panel of school garden organizers. With a room filled almost to capacity this morning, parents, farmers, gardeners, and school officials alike listened intently about how to start one in their own school system.

Dorothy Mullen, founder of the Riverside Elementary School gardens in Princeton, NJ, discussed how she got the project underway in her district. Only a few weeks post-9/11 in November 2001, she wanted to make a change in the school lunch system by introducing fresh food.

She noted how nutrition positively or negatively affects the body. “The brain is the most sensitive organ to poor nutrition,” she said. At the very least, kids can have a loss in concentration that prevents learning. “When the brain is out fuel,” she said, “we can’t learn correctly.”

Mullen, who is also an addiction counselor, said she started small by taking kids on a walking tour to her backyard garden. Then, the concept grew. She wanted to take it to the school. This was one way to instill the benefits of nutrition. She pointed out that, with a garden, there is a teaching opportunity for other subjects: science, math, food and nutrition, and art. From an environmental perspective, conservation in composting and water usage is a valuable lesson as well.

Editorial Credibility in an Online World

by Elizabeth G. Howard

I was recruited by MomCentral.com to take part in their blog tours, when the subject was appropriate for my blogs. I have two blogs -- Letters from a Small State, which reflects on my life in Connecticut, and Honk if You Compost, my eco-humor blog.

I am on a mission with these tours: to write great reviews and thoughtful pieces for whatever I sign on to. I take the job seriously, even if the pay isn't much.

Recently I committed to review Clorox's Green Works Natural Biodegradable Cleaning Wipes. I am seriously curious about this brand-- I particularly wanted see if Clorox could sell me on this disposable product.

They didn't ... the wipes, although compostable weren't amazingly useful enough to make them worth adding to the cleaning products that are tried and truly low-impact.

Everyone's Truth is Out There
Curiously, my negative eco-humor-review was not too overly adored by the MomCentral crew-- I was asked if I didn't want to tone it down just a little bit? This has indicated to me what I have been suspecting about this far-reaching and influential website (and others like it): online reviews can often be more about promoting products than they are about giving serious consideration to the product and its impact on the audience. In the case of MomCentral, I fear this may be the case.

It is certainly true that with online writing, the lines between advertising and editorial are gone. As is illustrated by contextual advertising (ie. Adsense), where once there was a firm division between the ad and the ed, we now decide precisely what we advertise based on the page content.

The result? The more niche reporting becomes, the more difficult it becomes to evaluate the credibility, objectivity and even the usefulness of information we find online. Everyone has an opinion--and that opinion is backed by an agenda that becomes more and more hidden.

I have one recommendation, and that is awareness. For more information about how to evaluate what you read on the web, have a look here.

Submit Comments for Healthy School Lunches by 10/15!

Read more posts on motherhood and the environment on Eco-Mamas.com

My last post, before the haze of a holiday weekend set in, focused on the reauthorization of The Child Nutrition Act in 2009. I asked readers to comment on the USDA's public comment website to make their voices heard. We want fresh fruits and vegetables! We want increased funding! We want standards for "snack line" foods! And, then I got to thinking. I asked all of you to comment, I commented, but then I stopped there.

Today, energized by a sunny holiday weekend spent with my children, I realized I could do more. Did you comment? Do you want to take it a step further? To quote someone very politically relevant - YES, I CAN! Today I wrote a letter to every member of the school board as well as my children's school principals and some powerful PTA women that I know that can really get the job done. It was so simple and so quick. Visit your school's website, scout out the email addresses and type a quick letter. No time to write the letter? Here - take mine! Just don't tell the kids how quick and easy plagiarism can be!

Dear Members of the Board,

My name is (your name here), a mother of x, y, z attending the (ABC) Consolidated Schools. I am writing you today to request your attention to an important matter:

The Child Nutrition Act - a major piece of federal legislation that helps determine school food policy and resources – will begin reauthorization in 2009. Amazingly, this act has been unchanged since the 1960's and besides being outdated, it doesn't address many issues facing students today, such as: obesity, diabetes, cholesterol levels, allergies, working parent households, religous beliefs and many other factors not present in the 1960's. In addition, the current act doesn't contain any standards for so-called "snack-line" foods such as brand name items, fast food chain selections, sodas and marketing gimmicks.

The good news is the USDA and the government are accepting the public's comments on the reauthorization of this act, but the comment period ends very soon - October 15, 2008. I understand this email is reaching you during the busiest time, right at the beginning of a new school year. However, I am only asking for a moment of your time to pass the word along to your fellow colleagues, the schools and their PTAs and the food service department.

For those who are limited on time, simply visit the website I provided below and enter your comments. The website address:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064805f47dd

A basic set of comments are as follows (please feel free to cut and paste these comments into the comments section if you wish!):

• Increase funding for school meals and provide incentives for schools to offer healthier foods.
• Increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
• Improve nutrition standards for school meals so they align with the most recent dietary guidelines.
• Establish standards for food sold in schools outside of the school meals programs such as that sold at snack bars and cafeteria a la carte lines.

Idbids: Ecologically Friendly Toys for Kids

Not only can you live greener, but you can also teach your children to lead more ecologically friendly lives with the new toy Idbids. The name is a play on the words iddy biddy, or rather small.

This correlates with the children (since they are iddy biddy) and taking iddy biddy steps to improve the environment. The toys are all made of 100% Egyptian cotton. There are three toys to choose from: Scout the Cloud, Waverly the water drop and Lola the flower. Each comes with a guidebook that is printed on recycled paper and offers a checklist of activities for the children to do to make the earth a cleaner place. The kit comes with:

1. 9" toy

2. Organic cotton cinch sack

3. Storybook and Field Guide printed on recycled paper with eco-friendly inks

4. Online reward program

5. Kit packaging is made from recycled and eco-friendly materials and includes paper doll cutouts and a playland insert

Idbids is located in Atlanta, but the toys can be purchased online and delivered to people in CT or NY as well as the rest of the United States. The toys were debuted in New York City during the 2008 toy fair.