Neighborhood Schools Connect Around the Environment They Share

Environment

Our three schools share a place. We sit at the base of West Rock Ridge State Park, one of Connecticut’s largest state parks, and one of the only ones connected to an urban area. Students can hike from Common Ground and Elm City Montessori, explore unique microclimates and the species diversity they make possible, study how urban forests are adapting or struggling in the face of climate change, hike to the summit and see their entire city.  

Likewise, our schools share a neighborhood, also called West Rock. West Rock is home to incredible human and environmental resources – a state university with a strong focus on sustainability and social justice, a community health center, large areas of forest. We also share environmental challenges. The capped landfill and active transfer station for the neighboring town of Hamden– the site of a former natural area turned quarry turned dump – has its entrance in our New Haven neighborhood. The city’s largest concentration of public housing is in New Haven, and neighborhood stakeholders have had to fight for access to a health center, workable public transit, a corner store, and other critical infrastructure. Ironically, our three schools aren’t connected by sidewalk – though that too is changing, thanks to advocacy by students and neighbors. 

And, our three schools share an urban waterway. Wintergreen Brook flows by the back door of Brennan Rogers School. It passes just across the street from Common Ground, where students have created the Wintergreen Brook Urban Oasis. It meets up with the main branch of the West River just around the corner from Elm City Montessori, before flowing into New Haven Harbor and Long Island Sound. Wintergreen Brook and the West River are, like our neighborhood, a confluence of opportunities and challenges: site of persistent illegal dumping and perennial cleanup efforts, impaired by high levels of e coli and fecal coliform, a source of resiliency and potential flooding during extreme weather events, an asset and source of peace for residents, part of a state-designated greenway with lots of potential but limited access. 

Expectations

Our students can – and have – deepened their understanding and grown their skills through experiences together in this place. The learning goals and outcomes have varied based on the ways we have connected. For instance:

• Environmental Leadership & Stewardship: Students from Common Ground travel to ECMS and Brennan Rogers twice a year for school-wide community service days. While at these schools, they practice and demonstrate skills as environmental educators and stewards. Back at Common Ground, they write reflections for their environmental leadership portfolios -- a Common Ground graduation requirement -- describing how they demonstrated school-wide leadership standards in their work at these K-8 partner schools. 
• Next Generation Science Standards: Students from Common Ground monitor water quality and identify potential sources of nonpoint source pollution in Wintergreen Brook and West River, the waterway that passes by our three schools. In the future, we hope that they will get to present what they learn about these clean water issues to peers at their neighboring schools.
• Common Core-Aligned Speaking & Listening Skills: 7th and 8th graders from Elm City Montessori travel to Common Ground to visit exhibitions of student work from Common Ground's 10th grade core unit on climate change. Common Ground 10th graders practice their presentation skills across a range of disciplines (sharing visual arts, spoken word, science exhibitions, tec.); ECMS students use this experience to complement their science curriculum and practice their critical listening skills; they are asked to share their feedback on what they learned and how well the Common Ground students presented their work. 

Exhibition & Experience

With EPA support, our three schools have been able to grow different ways of working together. Here are some specific models for school-to-school collaboration that we’ve tried over the last two years: 

Community partner fairs: In each of the last two Septembers, Common Ground has hosted more than two dozen local organizations in our multi-purpose room. The partner fair takes place just as our seniors are beginning to identify the foci of their capstone projects. Since working with a partner organization is a requirement of these senior project, the fair offers a valuable opportunity for "speed dating" with potential project partners. It's also a chance for all students to learn about service, learning, and leadership opportunities. We've been lucky to have our neighborhood schools -- Elm City Montessori and Brennan Rogers -- show up to share opportunities for our students to volunteer at these schools. Other environmental organizations focused on our neighborhood -- Gather New Haven, Solar Youth, the New Haven Parks Department, also show up to share opportunities for our students. Students across all grade levels are tasked with finding organizations that match their passions, and filling out a worksheet that helps them log what they learn. It's not a perfect model -- some partners have let us know that they haven't seen many follow through on connections made at the fair -- but it lays the groundwork, we hope, for future connections. 

School-wide community service days: Twice each year, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the final school day before April break, all Common Ground students take on community service projects. They serve with their guidance groups – the 10-15 students they meet and build relationships with daily over the course of their 4 years of high school. Since 9th graders are just getting to know our campus, and their curriculum focuses they usually take on projects on our site and urban farm: for instance, helping to install student-designed interpretive exhibits along Wintergreen Brook, or helping to create a new gathering circle in our outdoor classroom. Tenth graders head out into the larger community – for instance, they helped remove garbage and improve trails at Pond Lily and Long Wharf Nature Preserve, working with our partners at Gather New Haven. By the time they are juniors and seniors, many guidance groups are drawn to work with younger students – and given that they’re just a short walk away, students at Elm City Montessori and Brennan Rogers are their natural partners. Common Ground guidance groups plan and lead educational activities (e.g., seasonal nature arts), work alongside elementary staff and students to steward school gardens and outdoor classrooms, sometimes model 

Educator exchanges: As part of our EPA-funded work, Common Ground and Elm City Montessori each hosted an opportunity for teachers across our neighborhood to gather and learn from one another. The formula is simple: Pick a time that you're confident works for the hosts and priority partner schools. Send targeted invites to neighborhood schools, and also share more broadly with schools across our city. Identify a host who can lead a tour, share a sample place-based environmental activity, answer questions. Bring snacks to share, and open up space for casual conversation and community building. Offer thanks. Repeat at another partner school. 

Students as authentic audience for each others' work: In April of the last two years, Common Ground 10th graders and teachers have mounted a culminating exhibition at the end of a unit on climate change. They fill our multi-purpose room with art, science poster boards, poetry, and designs for new community organizations that can help address climate change in New Haven. And, they invite our neighbors -- 7th and 8th graders from