Green Team Presents Heart of Leadership Environmental Service Award

On Tuesday, February 14, Green Team Southwestern students, Sydnee Nelson (Clay Center), Stephen Strecker (Tonkawa, OK), and Elle Nguyen (Wichita) traveled to Central Plains High School in Claflin, KS to award the Go Green Oiler Team with a $500 Heart of Leadership Environmental Service Award.  The Heart of Leadership Environmental Service Award is given to a high school group for excellence in a community service project which is beneficial to the environment.  

Elle Nguyen and Sydnee Nelson present the Heart of Leadership Award (on Valentine's Day) to the Go Green Oiler Team of Central Plains High School

The Go Green Oiler Team is organizing an Alternative Activities to Save Energy Day in their community. They are inviting members of the Claflin community to come down to the park to participate in fun games for all ages. Along with the games, they will inform the community members about energy usage and ways to increase efficiency or decease usage. They are asking the people that are coming to shut off all electricity in their homes to see how much we can save during the three hour time period. The games and information session will bring together students, teachers, and community members of all ages. The purpose of this project is to make people aware of our current and future environmental issues. People of all ages should be concerned with this issue, therefore they will have a common interest, bringing all ages together.

“The Heart of Leadership Award Environmental Service Award is an excellent way to recognize eco-friendly servant leadership taking place at the high school level.  We were excited to present this award to the students of Central Plains High School and discuss the impact this award will have in their school and community.” – Jason Speegle, Director of Green Team Southwestern.  

We will be accepting submissions for next year's Heart of Leadership Award Environmental Service Award during the Fall 2012 semester.

"Waste"ing Away...

This semester, the Green Team at Southwestern has been learning a lot about what happens to trashed items when they get thrown into the garbage can or recycling bin. "Our society really takes trash for granted. Many people assume that items just magically disappear once we throw them into the nearest dumpster. I am trying to educate myself and our students that that is not the case," says Jason Speegle, Green Team Director.

So far this semester, Green Team students have toured the local Cowley County landfill and transfer station, the Winfield Recycling and Composting facilities and recently took part in a campus waste audit. At the transfer station, the group learned that most of stuff that we throw in the dumpster is hauled to a landfill in Harper County, 50 miles to the west of Winfield. Tons and tons of residential waste from homes and businesses in Cowley County is transferred to the Harper County landfill and buried in the ground. Unfortunately, very few of the items decompose in current landfill structures, due to the way they are designed. According to one of the workers at the Cowley County Landfill, even though the residential landfill closed 30 years ago, if someone took a shovel to the place where the trash was buried, you could "still read the newspapers" after all this time.

The group had the opportunity to witness a load of "trash" from a local retailer. As the truck was dumped, the students noticed never worn coats and never been used products mixed in with the other trash, much of which could have been recycled, composted or donated to charity. "I hope it was an eye-opener for the students. I certainly was for me," says Speegle.

Winfield is fortunate to have local composting and recycling programs. According to the EPA, only around 9,000 communities in the nation have local recycling programs and only 3,000 communities have composting programs. Winfield is blessed to have both. The Winfield composting program is free, both to dispose of compostable materials and residents can receive the compost and wood chips free of charge. The recycling program does have a cost to residents of Winfield, but it is a minimal $3 per month added on to monthly trash service fees. Kevin Neighbors, Sanitation Supervisor for the City of Winfield came and taught SC students about the programs offered by the City of Winfield and he then led a group of students on a tour of the compost and recycling facilities.

On February 27, several members of the Frito-Lay Green Team from the Frito-Lay plant in Topeka came to Southwestern and led the Green Team students through a campus waste audit. "If we are to minimize the amount of waste that our campus generates, then it is important to know what is being thrown away," says Speegle. The results of the waste audit are not yet calculated, but a large percentage of the garbage that was sifted through was materials that can already be recycled at Southwestern. "We need to do a better job of educating our campus community about what we can recycle and why it is important." Frito-Lay in Topeka has been able to achieve over 99% landfill diversion.

Teaching about Wind Energy

One of the missions of the Southwestern College Green Team is to teach others on campus and in the community the importance of living a sustainable way of life. One of the areas that Green Team students have learned about and desire to teach others is the growing importance of renewable energy sources. The installation of the college's first wind turbine is leading to opportunities to do just that.

On March 15th, the Green Team hosted 52 students from Mrs. Camille Richert's chemistry class from Winfield High School. The students are learning about alternative energy sources and they wanted to come to the college and see the turbine and learn about it. Green Team director, Jason Speegle taught the high school students about wind energy, some specifics about the Skystream turbine as well as the importance of sustainable living. Green Team students, Stephen Strecker and Daniel Van Sickle led the group through a presentation about solar energy and highlighted some of the things that the Green Team participates in on the Southwestern campus.

Also, on February 9th, the Green Team hosted a group of 13 students from Mr. Greg Carver's agriculture class from Winfield High School. The students in the class were learning about solar and wind energy and came over to the wind turbine site on the college campus. Green Team student, Stephen Strecker and director, Jason Speegle presented the students with information regarding wind and solar energy as well as information about how Southwestern installed its wind turbine in the summer of 2011. Some of the applications that were planned for the group were postponed due to the cold, rainy, cloudy nature of the Thursday afternoon.

According to Carver, some of the students in his class are "determined to build a [wind] generator" so the opportunity for them to see one up close was very valuable.