About Green Exhibitions
For the last month or two of each school year, classes at Boston Green Academy shift gears, as students at every grade level gear up for big, culminating "Green Exhibitions." These Green Exhibitions:
- Bring together teachers and content across the core subject areas: math, science, humanities, and social studies.
- Focus on the big challenges facing Boston Green Academy and the City of Boston: waste, gentrification, healthy and sustainable food, and more.
- Result in big products (like research papers or multilingual Public Service Annoujncements) and performances for public audiences that challenge students to demonstrate what they've learned and tackle real challenges.
At each grade level, students' work results in a different green exhibition:
8th grade focuses on gentrification and urban planning in the City of Boston.
9th grade dives into Undercover Boston -- the systems that make the city run. Students can choose to focus on trash, transportation, climate change, or housing.
10th graders prepare to give GreenTalks that propose solutions to food issues at Boston Green Academy or the City of Boston.
11th graders pick an urban sustainability issue about which they are passionate, take on action research projects that address this issue, and present their work at a Green Action Expo.
Green Exhibitions & Green Milestones
End of year Green Exhibitions are among the most important components of BGA's commitment that every student pass a shared set of "Green Milestones" over their four years at BGA. Green Milestones at Boston Green Academy are a continuum of green experiences from 6th-12th grade. These Milestones ensure that, by the time they graduate, all students will: 1) Establish a meaningful relationship with our community and earth, 2) Grapple, and engage with real world, sustainability issues, and 3) Engage in leadership opportunities that promote sustainability. These milestones include:
Community Service: All grades complete community service. The middle school does group community service projects and the high school does community service with their advisory and eventually on their own.
Middle School Green Overnight Trips: Each grade in the middle school goes on an overnight trip that helps our students bond with and better understand a part of New England they have never experienced before (like our harbor islands).
Middle School Green Enrichment class: This is a new class that all middle schoolers go to once a week. All curriculum and projects address sustainability issues facing our students’ communities. The students learn about these issues and work on action projects to make a difference.
Green Job Fairs, Panels and Shadows: As students move from the 9th-12th grade, they experience grade specific green job fairs, job panels and eventually job shadows. These experiences all culminate in their senior internship.
Vertex Science Trips: All high school classes visit the state of the art Vertex Science Labs once/month. Here students do labs taught by professionals in the field.
Green Interdisciplinary Exhibitions: All 6th-11th grade students participate in a culminating green, interdisciplinary exhibition. These exhibitions deepen our students understanding of sustainability as they work with all of their content classes to write a research paper and produce a presentation on their grade specific topic. The exhibitions increase in rigor and student choice as the move from 6th-11th grade.
Senior Internship: All seniors complete a 6-week internship in a field of their choice. They reflect weekly (via journal entry and through a meeting with their supervisor) on how their chosen career impacts the sustainability of our community and world. They use this information to help grow the sustainability initiatives at their internship.