New Hampton School

An ecological footprint is a measure of the resources consumed by a family, community, or nation, relative to the total resource pool available on our planet.  This metric gives us a sense of how sustainably we are living our lives and if the planet can support our current patterns of consumption and waste.  We are working to calculate New Hampton School's ecological footprint.  Generating numbers for our resource consumption and waste streams will allow us to inform our community, increase awareness, and demonstrate the need for change.

Students at New Hampton School are organizing a dorm competition to reduce energy usage on campus.  The competition between dorms will aim to educate students about ways to conserve energy.  Green Proctors in each dorm will be appointed to facilitate the competition.  The dorm with the greatest reduction in energy during the campus-wide competition will receive a surprise prize.  Students are considering using some of the money saved by reducing energy use to finance the competition.

Members of the HGC are researching "green" items to be sold in our campus store.  Some of their ideas include, solar ipod and cell phone chargers, green cleaning and bathroom supplies, organic cotton NHS clothing, recycled school supplies, and books on sustainability and the environment.  They are also looking into recycling bins and composting bins for faculty apartments.  The HGC hopes to have these items available for purchase in the store this year!

Faculty and students at NHS are researching the implementation of a large scale composting facility on-campus.  There are many benefits to composting our food waste and landscaping scraps.  The compost can be used around campus on our grounds, we will create less waste that we must pay to dispose of, and composting has many applications in our science curriculum.  HGC members are in the research phase and are examining composting facilities at other schools and universities.