DCMS Recycling Garden
In celebration of Earth Month and as part of an ongoing project, the Deep Creek Middle School Eco Club worked with staff from The Island School to organize a community roadside cleanup. They enlisted the help of the whole school to remove and recycle litter from a section of roadside neighboring the middle school in Deep Creek. Students used our recently purchased equipment and bins to collect and sort a huge quantity of waste from the surrounding community. This was in an effort not only to improve the aesthetic of the area, but also to both engender support for community recycling and waste management as well as to assess the key waste streams in the community.
Students, staff and residents worked together at the Deep Creek Middle School community clean-up.
Students discovered that the majority of waste is either glass or recyclable plastic. They collected over 90kg of glass and 45kg of recyclable plastic in just over an hour from a relatively short stretch of road. Upon return to school, students sorted and audited the waste to understand the types and quantities of these materials that could be recycled, or otherwise went into the local dump sites.
As part of their Earth Day Celebrations, DCMS hosted a panel with scientists and researchers from the Cape Eleuthera Institute.
In conjunction with the roadside clean-up, the DCMS Eco Club organized a panel discussion with researchers and technicians from The Island School on Earth Day. The Eco Club students hosted the talk and posed questions to the panelists. The theme was the practical aspects and considerations of environmentalism within real-world communities. Questions included “How has your research changed over your 8 years here, and what is it like managing a lab?” and “How does this research relate to us in The Bahamas?”
The DCMS Recycling Garden Project, made possible by The PaperSeed Foundation is an ongoing learning opportunity for the Middle School to explore sustainable living within our island community.
All of these initiatives are linked to the DCMS Recycling Garden Project, made possible through the generous support of The PaperSeed Foundation. With their support, Deep Creek Middle students are on a multi-year journey to learn more about sustainable development. In addition to considering waste streams and opportunities for recycling and reusing materials, students are also building a community garden at the middle school, where they can learn about local farming and gardening to support their families and their neighbors.
Students fill raised beds with soil in their Recycling Garden Project.
DCMS ECO Club has worked alongside staff to prepare and layout the garden where they will grow vegetables and crops to supplement their meals. While the finishing touches are being completed on the garden construction, much of the growing will take place in the fall as this is the growing season. Students will plant most seeds in the early fall as they return to school and be able to harvest crops throughout the school year once the growing season is underway.