Newark City Schools take center stage for Ohio's Earth Day

NEWARK - In her 30 years with the Environmental Protection Agency, Ohio EPA director Laurie Stevenson had never heard of the idea.

Through their award-winning STEMfest (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) project, Heritage Middle School eighth grade pre-engineering students Ali Farnsworth, Nykella Lloyd, Abby Warner and Syncere Royster developed a way to heat a house using thermal energy from compost.

"I found out how much we waste, per day and per person," Royster said. In their Zero Waste Energy Challenge, the students took items being thrown out like coffee grounds, lettuce, orange juice, lima beans, orange peels, paper towels and newspapers and put them into compost, through Heritage's two "Green Machines."

"There are 94 percent of food scraps thrown away every day," the students said, "We could prevent landfills from being filled up, and it could be used to produce thermal energy, and enrich the soil to grow more food."

"You may be on to something," said Stevenson, who attended Earth Day celebrations Monday at Heritage, Newark High School and Carson Elementary. With Governor Mike DeWine on hand at Heritage, Stevenson also introduced the Encouraging Environmental Excellence in Education (E4) program. "You are one of the first members of the program, and we wanted to acknowledge everything going on at this school, with the leadership and sustainability," she said.

E4 will recognize schools for efforts to educate students on environmental topics through their curriculum and activities, using the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle. "It's great to see students learning practical skills to help take care of our planet," DeWine said."I talked to the (STEM) students and I know they're in engineering, but whether you are in engineering or not is not relevant. They need to find a passion for what they like doing, and do it well."

The students worked with Pam Roberts, Mary Barry and Sarah Thomas at the Heritage School greenhouse, through the Together We Grow Gardens Initiative started by executive director Roberts. A $16,000 grant from the Ohio EPA was used to fund the two "Green Machines" at Heritage, and another at Newark High School.

Together We Grow Gardens began seven years ago. "We started with one little garden across from my house in this east side neighborhood," Roberts said. "Now we have six community gardens (Curtis Avenue, Eastern Avenue, Everett Park, Lincoln Land Lab, Sixth Street and Western Avenue) and five school gardens (Heritage, Carson Elementary, McGuffey Elementary, Ben Franklin Elementary and Newark High School)."

The group envisions having gardens all over Licking County, not only to provide food and improve the look and value of neighborhoods. But to provide education, job training and self confidence. Through that end, it works with Ohio Fish and Wildlife, Boys and Girls Club of Newark, Ohio State-Newark, Central Ohio Technical College, Denison University and perhaps most importantly, the Licking County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

"We've introduced composting to SPARK students with special needs," Roberts said. "Right now, we work with 50 people from different providers, and we hope that number continues to grow."

"Working with SPARKS and LICCO have been the most satisfying thing," Royster said. "They are such great people."

The Here We Grow program uses the Heritage greenhouse to teach adults with disabilities how to maintain the greenhouse, grow and harvest vegetables and interact with community members. It combines therapeutic gardening with vocational skills to make them more self sufficient.

dweidig@newarkadvocate.com

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Twitter: @noz75