Sustainability & Climate Justice

May brings us closer to summer break, but we want to take this month's newsletter as an opportunity to reflect back on all the incredible events and actions done throughout PPS for this year's Earth Month!

Connecting students with climate change in PPS means supporting creative and interactive activities to meaningfully engage all of our schools and communities in climate solutions. In April we found no shortage of schools and community organizations celebrating this important idea through a variety of exciting Earth Day activities.

Please join us in celebrating these activities, events, and projects. From a zoomed out vantage, the totality of these events shows how deeply committed the PPS community is to teaching for and ensuring a sustainable and equitable planet for now and for future generations! Thank you all for the never-ending inspiration.

And scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for a special celebration of PPS Senior Program Manager of Energy & Sustainability, who spoke at a White House Summit for Sustainable and Healthy K-12 School Buildings and Grounds.

Are you a high school student? Don't miss your chance below to vote on next year's cafeteria menu.

Last but not least, we've rolled out a new design for our monthly newsletter in order to better reflect both the actions taking place across the school district, and the contributions made to the newsletter by both our Sustainability and Climate Justice teams. After all, sustainability and climate justice are so deeply entwined that this change only makes sense. Enjoy!

"On Earth Day, at Woodstock School, members of Rotary, Principal Johnson, Mr. Hunter's class, and a few invited guests, held a special ceremony to celebrate the addition of a Peace Pole and Peace Garden to the Woodstock School Garden. The Peace Pole features the message "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in several different languages (soon to include Chinese)."

-- Jesse Hunter, Woodstock Elementary Teacher

The Peninsula Elementary Earth Day event featured a neighborhood clean up, moving soil and planting an edible garden, removing invasive species and weeds, crafts and a seed swap. Over 150 students, families, and volunteers showed up to move 5 cubic yards of mulch and 4 cubic yards of soil into the garden and outdoor classroom, and removed 1600 POUNDS of litter and yard waste (mostly invasive species) from the neighborhood and campus. Big thank you to the volunteers and partners Depave and SOLVE. Way to go, Panthers.

Roosevelt High School's Environmental Science and Leadership classes teamed up to create an Earth Day carnival. Environmental Science made the games themselves in the RHS makerspace and have partnered with the student store to give free frozen yogurt if students complete a climate change scavenger hunt, and sign a climate pledge.

Bridger Creative Science School celebrated Earth Day 2024 with a Sunday afternoon of community togetherness and stewardship swapping clothes, making upcycled planters and bird feeders, spreading mulch in our Rain Garden, and envisioning a revamped Garden Education Space and painted blacktop areas. This event was led by the BCSS PTA Green Team, who is happy to collaborate with other schools and can be reached at ptagardenlead@creativescienceschool.org.

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• A partnership between Rose City Park Elementary, Grow Portland, Full Cellar Farm and Wild Roots Farm resulted in a day of fun taste testing of root vegetables!
• Arleta Elementary held an Earth Day + Arbor Day celebration with plants sales and a bug hotel craft activity!
• The Community Transition Program Green Thumb Campus greenhouse plant sale got a special shoutout on the PPS Instagram for providing students exciting real-world experience in greenhouse management and plant cultivation.
• Glencoe Elementary held a successful Earth Day bike bus! And a slew of PPS bike buses continue to ride to school, some DAILY. Follow @saferoutespdx to ride along.
• Peninsula Elementary School followed up a recent Depave event by planting, moving soil, and doing other nature activities.
• And Franklin High School staff and students completed a successful campus clean-up.

Did we miss your schools' Earth Day event? Send us an email about it and we'll share in our next newsletter!

In April, SAGE (Senior Advocates for Generational Equity) held their annual Climate Solutions Fairs at two PPS middle schools, Roseway Heights and Harriet Tubman Middle School. At the fairs students had the opportunity to visit booths and exhibitions to hear from local organizations about their work in energy and climate solutions across the city.

Students got to connect with the PPS Sustainability and Climate Justice teams by sharing their ideas for climate projects at their own schools. As a contributing organizer of the event, we want to extend our thanks to all of the incredible organizations and volunteers who helped to make these events so incredible for students!

SAGE is always looking for volunteers, so if you're interested in learning more about how you can get involved in classroom education and climate fairs, check out the following link: https://wearesage.org/

On an absolutely beautiful Earth Day weekend, Making Earth Cool, 350PDX, and other organizations held their Earth Day community parade at Sunnyside Elementary!

The parade traveled through the Sunnyside neighborhood, returning to the school shortly after. Young and old alike wore wings, beaks, or leaves to show off their love of planet earth and its inhabitants, while chanting slogans like "Hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go!" A full band kept the energy up as folks stepped out of their homes, gardens or shopping to join in, wave and take photos. It was just the kind of joyous and welcoming event that makes Portland such a weird and wonderful city to live in or visit!

Our team is incredibly proud of Aaron Presberg, Senior Program Manager of Energy & Sustainability, who was invited to speak at the White House Summit for Sustainable and Healthy K-12 School Buildings and Grounds. As part of this effort, PPS was also honored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office as a recipient of the Third Annual Efficient and Healthy Schools Program in the category of “Solutions Strategist”.

His panel starts at the 2 hour mark. Check it out to learn more about how we are making our schools more resilient to climate disasters and turning them into spaces that can keep community safe during extreme weather.

Congrats, Aaron!

Exciting news in the transportation area! Through PGE’s Electric School Bus Fund, PPS was granted another round of funding allowing for the purchase of 3 more buses. When everything is said and done, PPS will own a total of 11 small electric buses.

In addition to that, we have updated numbers regarding the grant that First Student Inc. received from the EPA Clean School Bus program. 17 of the full size buses that First Student Inc. receives will service PPS students!

If all goes well, these buses should all be delivered and in operation sometime within the 2025/2026 school year and will result in a total number of 28 electric buses servicing both general education and special education students alike!

May is Walk + Roll to School Challenge Month! Is your school participating? This month-long challenge is a great opportunity to not only practice sustainable transportation methods, but also to gain critical feedback from students and staff regarding their alternative transportation preferences and accessibility needs so they can be best supported by their PPS community. Check out the following link for more information and to order your incentives. Let's walk, bike, and roll our way to a brighter and healthier future! https://www.pps.net/Page/20961

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS: PPS Nutrition Services wants to hear your opinions about school breakfast and lunch! Click here to fill out the brief survey, or use the QR code on the thumbnail. Your responses will have an impact on the 2024-2025 menu. Survey responses are being accepted until June 1st.

Does your school need effective waste and recycling signage for hallway bins? Our Sustainability team has laminated 8.5”x11” copies available for schools to post on and/or above bins. Schools are welcome to request signage for Garbage, Recycling, and/or Food Waste bins. Please reach out to our team at sustainability@pps.net to request signage.