Framingham Public Schools
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Stapleton School recycling program honored by state By John Hilliard/Daily News staff Associated Press Sun Apr 15, 2007, 12:00 AM EDT FRAMINGHAM--Three years after teachers at the Stapleton Elementary School created a school-wide recycling program, state environmental officials will honor educators for their work later this week. "We have made it a 'whole school' effort," said Mandy Couturier, a science teacher at Stapleton. "We really try to involve everybody." Couturier and fellow teacher Sarah Schoolcraft-Boylan have spent the past few years building Stapleton's recycling program--which has helped cut the amount of trash generated by the school by 40 percent. And along the way, has encouraged the roughly 420 schoolchildren at Stapleton to think twice about their environment. "The kids are really into it--they're the fuel that runs it," said Couturier. That program will be awarded with the Secretary's Award for Excellence in Environmental Education, an honor bestowed by the Secretary's Advisory Group on Environmental Education and the state Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Couturier and Schoolcraft-Boylan will accept the award at the State House on Friday, April 27. Couturier, who helped establish the recycling program, said Stapleton is the only Framingham elementary school to offer co-mingled recycling of metal, glass and other materials. The school even receives money from a private hauler for every ton of paper it recycles, she said. As educators expand the program each year, she said they have applied for a Framingham Education Fund grant for more classroom materials, and also look for donations to help cover the recycling program's costs. Both teachers belong to the state Green Team, overseen by the Department of Environmental Protection, which offers lesson plans and activities for educators to use in the classroom. But the school's three-year-old recycling program is run entirely by teachers as a largely "self-funded" effort, said Schoolcraft-Boylan. She joined the school two years ago and said help from a local PTO grant allowed the school to purchase supplies for a butterfly garden and qualify as an official wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. "To really be a part of this (recycling program) here in Framingham, I just feel so good about the work we do here," she said. "Every little piece helps." |
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