If you walked onto the Emma Willard School campus just a couple of years ago, you might not have seen many visible indicators of efforts toward sustainability, beyond recycling bins here and there. If you actually talked to people, however, you would find many students and employees who are passionate about reducing environmental impact. You would find faculty teaching lessons on water quality, the Emma Green club selling reusable bamboo utensils, and the dining hall using compostable napkins. Grassroots efforts toward sustainable practices and education have been growing for some time, and when the school wrote its strategic plan, Leading with Purpose, they became ingrained in our vision for the future.

Emma’s Environmental Philosophy

“Our community cares deeply about being part of the positive change we would like to see in the world by advocating for environmentally conscious practices. We have our own work to do to achieve true environmental stewardship.” 

Thus read the directive in the Emma Willard 2021–2026 strategic plan, which would set the school on a trajectory for future conversations about sustainability and environmental stewardship. In the past year, this strategic directive has become the charge of the Environmental Sustainability Taskforce*, whose first task was to create an environmental philosophy to guide the school’s work.

This spring, the group introduced this statement of philosophy to the internal community, marking the beginning of an effort to codify a movement that has been at work on Mount Ida for many years. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
Emma Willard School’s commitment to environmental sustainability is alive in our culture, curriculum design, and historic campus. Across the gamut of the Emma Willard curricular and co-curricular experience, we challenge students to understand and address the effects of climate change, encouraging them to become future leaders and problem solvers for environmental action.

Principles:

• We educate students about the science and impact of climate change throughout our curriculum, including issues of social justice and the unique effects of climate change on girls and women globally.
• We empower students to explore personal and collective responsibility to find practical and concrete solutions to combat the effects of climate change and lessen its causes.  
• We empower and support students to engage in leadership and collaborative roles related to environmental action both on and off campus, through participation in clubs, volunteerism, and more.
• We work proactively to measure and reduce the environmental impact of our own campus operations and to ensure the future of our historic campus. 
• We partner with the local, regional, and alumni community to further the collective work of climate change mitigation and sustainability. 

Associate Head of School Dr. Meredith Legg, who chairs the task force, notes that much of the work was underway, even though the guiding philosophy had not yet been adopted. “There are some places where we’re already doing a lot more environmentally than we even realize because different offices have done this work,” she says, citing examples like the dining hall’s shift toward all things compostable and departments using reusable supplies for events. “We want to have something that provides guidance that’s more all-encompassing.”

The wheels are in motion for the next steps of the work: the climate action plan, which focuses on the physical plant, and the scope and sequence, which focuses on the implementation of environmental sustainability in the Emma Willard curriculum. 

The Climate Action Plan

From exploring the possibility of geothermal energy to finding just the right location for solar arrays, Director of Facilities Construction Management & Planning Scott Kosnick is leading the charge to find green solutions that fit Emma Willard. Each option has costs and benefits that factor into the equation. Some of the solutions can be utilized in new construction, like the Alice Dodge Wallace ’38 Center for the Performing Arts and the proposed new faculty housing (see p. 40). Others must be manipulated to retrofit buildings that are over a hundred years old. 

To help decipher the puzzle, the Environmental Sustainability Taskforce has engaged a consultant who will assess our current infrastructure, guide a discussion to establish goals for the future, and make a plan to achieve them. “It’s a very important plan,” Mr. Kosnick shares. “It will allow us to formalize our thoughts and then allow others to see what we’re trying to achieve and encourage them to support us in the process.”

In the meantime, the facilities and operations teams aren’t waiting to get started. Over the past few years, all of the school-owned exterior lighting on campus has been swapped out for more energy-efficient LEDs. Electric vehicle charging stations have been installed on campus. The school has engaged National Grid, our local energy provider, in a Strategic Energy Management Partnership that has precipitated an energy audit and ideas to minimize electrical usage. Replacements of electrical and mechanical systems have allowed a transition to higher energy and more efficient equipment, providing rebates that incentivize reduced energy usage.

Additionally, the new Wallace Center is partially subterranean to control indoor temperatures, with a green roof for added insulation and electrical systems that are built with sustainability in mind—ready for a green source of electricity to feed a green piece of equipment. Plans for new faculty residences focus on strategies used in passive houses, like ventilation optimization, solar control, and sustainably sourced, high-performance building materials.

Green Themes in the Classroom

What would it take to optimize a greenhouse to promote profitability and organic plant growth? Math Instructor Brett LaFave put the question to his calculus students and invited his wife, organic farm manager Lucy LaFave, to provide the class with insight into factors impacting greenhouses and important considerations for running an agribusiness. The students applied their math prowess to create and present proposals, complete with true-to-scale models of their greenhouse designs. 

 

Across the way, French instructors Manon Sabatier and Eloise Bérerd are preparing their students to debate either side of environmental issues such as sea level rise, air pollution, deforestation, fertilizer use, and more. They will research the position they’ve been assigned, regardless of their own personal opinion on the topic, and be prepared to make their arguments entirely in French. 
The coming year’s course catalog will include classes on environmental justice and marine biology that focus directly on climate science and related concerns.

Faculty are furthering their knowledge through professional development, such as the Global Summit on Climate Education held earlier this year at Columbia University. Language Instructor Guangyu Hao took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about how environmental issues can be addressed in her own classroom. One of her take-aways was how much language can impact a person’s relationship to an issue. Even the very basics of how language is formed involve the human relationship to the environment. One workshop in particular illustrated how the language of indigenous peoples are formed around what is found in nature, whereas modern languages center the human, and all words are used to reflect how things relate to humanity. “Through the exercises, we realized that we (humans) think we are the center, and everything else is ‘added on.’ Later, we realized we were the add-on.” This sort of reflection can help people see their interdependence with nature and the importance of exploring issues related to preserving it.

These practical applications, course designs, and continued education are all ways the Emma faculty are embedding reflections on environmental sustainability into their curriculum. It’s exactly what the Environmental Sustainability Taskforce hopes to see incorporated in the proposed scope and sequence called for in the school’s new environmental philosophy. 

“We have knowledgeable faculty who have been able to create individual courses or particular units in a class, but we haven’t established a set of standards by which we would expect it to be in the curriculum,” Dr. Legg shares. This will be the work of a team of faculty who will spend time this summer and into next year discovering what is already built into the curriculum. The group will then outline what we want every graduate of Emma Willard School to know or understand regarding environmental sustainability and articulate where it will be embedded into the curriculum. 

Students Lead the Way

Students are leading by example, feeling an urgent need to invest in learning all they can about ways to combat climate change and encourage sustainability. With the liberty to choose their own path through programs like the Signature capstone, many are opting to devote their time to environmental studies, and clubs like Emma Green are taking action.

 

Last fall, a group of students from Emma Green attended a conference where they were encouraged to create a climate action plan of their own. This student-created plan may not be as in-depth as the proposed institutional climate action plan, but it spurred Emma Green toward their own work for the school year. Co-heads Megan L. ’25 and Levi L-A. ’25 have focused the club’s efforts on improving recycling on campus. 

Noting that not all trash bins are accompanied by a recycle bin, and the recycle bins themselves are labeled inconsistently, the group researched the costs for possible solutions. They first considered a tri-bin system that would also include compost, but in conversation with Mr. Kosnick and Director of Facilities Ken McGivern, the students discovered that compost can attract pests and be difficult to control. They adjusted their plan to isolate compost and focus on consistency with trash and recycling bins across campus. “We also acknowledge that there’s a lack of education around what goes in which bins,” Levi says. “So Emma Green will be educating the community more on how to sort waste when our new system goes into play.”

“Rearranging and buying new bins isn’t the difficult part,” Meg adds. “It’s making sure that the community understands why we’re doing this and making it more enticing for them to put more thought into how they dispose of their waste.”

Emma Green is also committed to helping educate the community about reducing. Given the number of water bottles and empty boxes from online shopping disposed of on campus every day, they see an opportunity to encourage the community to reduce these practices. “I think that some people don’t even realize that they could be reducing, and that reducing is even more effective than recycling,” Levi notes.

Waste disposal is one of many areas of awareness that students are focused on. At the beginning of the school year, Emma Green posted tips in each bathroom stall and other public spaces, asking the community to consider reducing their water, paper, and electricity usage. In the spring, informational posters about sustainable clothing and shopping practices popped up as well. When it came time for Spring Showcase, Signature presentations included research on organic fertilizer, preserving coral reefs, reusing e-waste, creating sustainable paint, and much more!

Roz K. ’25 is among the many students whose interest in sustainability guides her Signature work, as well as her extracurricular activities. Her podcast on environmental justice and equity included research about systematic injustices that have placed heavier environmental burdens on certain populations. In her interview with Alanah Keddell-Tuckey, director for the Office of Environmental Justice at the Department of Environmental Conservation, Roz learned more about what’s being done to ensure that all residents of the State of New York have fair and meaningful access to processes that uphold principles of environmental and climate justice.

In her free time, Roz has been busily collecting and converting empty soda cans to soy candles, which she sold at the Saratoga Sustainability Fair to raise money to support composting projects at two local middle schools. After reaching out to a professor in the environmental sustainable engineering department at the University at Albany, she set out to write an article for online publication focusing on being proactive versus reactive in creating solutions to sustainability issues. Roz and Levi also collaborated with their classmate Carly H. ’25 in presenting a workshop called “Breathing While Black: Confronting Environmental Racism and Injustices” during this year’s MLK Day observances.

“The realization that not that many people are as aware of how important environmental sustainability is—and how scary it can be—encouraged me to try even harder to raise awareness,” Roz explains. “We need to find a way to look at our practices and see how we can make them more sustainable so we don’t just destroy all of our natural resources.”

Students have been encouraged by the work of the Environmental Sustainability Taskforce, feeling that it allows groups like Emma Green to put their ideas in front of adults who have the power to take action. “Just being around people who think similarly to you—we just all want to combat climate change,” Meg reflects on the collaborative work that’s being done. “It’s really empowering and inspiring to be around people who haven’t given up and are really trying hard to fix things.”

Coming Together

Dr. Legg hopes that the curriculum work, student work, and climate action plan can bring everyone together, allowing students to continue to be a part of the solutions without overburdening them with the anxiety of such big issues. “One of the challenges when you’re talking with young people about things like climate change is there can be so much fear and anxiety,” she says. “We know that for young people in this generation, it can compound mental health struggles and can be so anxiety-producing. One of the best things we can possibly do is to lean into talking about it.” 

Whether it’s activism, science, writing, art, or some other forte, Dr. Legg wants people to find their niche in the work. “Our Purpose & Community pillar focuses on being able to make learning relevant to students and help them feel a deep sense of purpose and an ability to have an impact, even in the face of overwhelming problems,” she concludes. The task force is counting on the entire Emma community to lean in, using their own skill sets to further the cause. 

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* ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY TASKFORCE

Chair: Dr. Meredith Legg, Associate Head of School 
Caroline Buinicky, Director of Library Resources and Research
Jon Calos, Experiential Learning Department Chair | Signature Director | Homer L. Dodge Instructor in Science 
Scott Kosnick, Director of Facilities Construction Management & Planning
Megan Labbate, Science Instructor | Sara Lee Schupf Family Chair in Curriculum Excellence And Innovation
Luke Meyers, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer 
Manon Sabatier, Language Instructor and Emma Green Advisor 

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This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2024 edition of Signature magazine.