Bees!

How sweet it is to bee a Small Middle School Green student right now. The school is buzzing about our new honey bees! Check out the picture below of our students learning to care for the hive.

 

Pattern, Symmetry, and Executive Functioning

Hello all!

Today in Mr. Brooks' 6th grade "The World Outside" class, students practiced mindfulness and executive functioning skills through the art of origami as they studied pattern and symmetry! Check out the pictures below!

Bucket Race

Mr. Brooks' 6th grade "The World Outside" class was outdoors today learning about watersheds and water conservation. They discussed the ways in which they use water every day. Did you know that every flush of your toilet uses about 5 gallons of water? In order for the students to understand how much 5 gallons is, they carried a 5 gallon bucket once around the entire school with a team! It was great exercise and great fun!

Capstone Project of the Week: Grow Towers

Exciting news! For her 8th grade Green Academy capstone project, Sabella Jaroszewski seeded and maintained our school grow towers. The grow towers use aeroponics, the process of growing plants without dirt, to produce vegetables for our school cafeteria. Check out the pictures of the fruits of her labor being harvested for use in our salad bar!

Austin Oaks Church Volunteer Day

Some wonderful volunteers from Austin Oaks Church came out to work in the Small Middle School gardens on Sunday. They planted countless trees in the blink of an eye. Thank you Austin Oaks Church for your support of Green Academy!

Green Academy Trip to Whole Foods

Mr. Brooks' "What's on your plate?" class visited Whole Foods on November 2nd and 3rd to explore the store and learn more about the food choices they make. Students completed a scavenger hunt throughout the store that tested the limits of their food and nutrition knowledge. The parents, teachers, and students then settled down on the Whole Foods patio to enjoy lunch together.

Check out the slideshow below!

Mulch and Compost Order Form Now Available!!!

Pre-order for the mulch and compost sale is open until October 28th!! You can order online by clicking HERE. Pick up your orders from the Small Middle School greenhouse on October 30th!

For more information click HERE or email elizabeth.grenadier@austinisd.org.

Hope to see you there!

Center for Green Schools’ K12 Education Platform Pilot

YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE!

The Green Academy and the Art Department have been working together to transform a barren section of the school into a piece of environmentally inspired art. Energized by the street art around Austin, students and teachers sought to produce a piece of work that would connect our diverse student interests and backgrounds. Students wanted to create a bright, vivid, simple, motivational, and "Selfie-worthy" piece of work that any could find enjoyment in,

After scouting locations on campus that would provide a large enough canvas to encapsulate the artistic vision, students worked to find the most environmentally conscience paint. Once paint was located and purchased, the long process began of taping, painting, drying and repeat.

We are very close to completing this project that began in the Fall semester of 2014. Here are the photographs of our progress so far.

Priming and sealing the porous brick 

Measuring and staking the center of the wall to allow the sun and its rays to be drawn symmetrically and easier

Penciling out our design

Penciled design

Taping over the pencil

Begin of  yellow paint application

YELLOW PAINT!

Sun?

Finishing the sun and its rays.

Clean up, clean up, everybody cleans up!

Orange background.

What's next? COMING SOON!

Posers posing for a selfie demonstration.

Adding some finishing touches, the Green Academy and Art Department finished our mural collaboration. Here is Mr. Tabares adding our street art graffiti.

Poser with added glowing accent color.

Flare

Bold font

FIN!

We are so proud of our kids and the work they do in these great Small Middle School and Austin ISD courses! If you come and take photos or share any of their work, please add the hashtag #AISDProud and #youaremysunshine. We want everyone to know how great our kids are and to showcase all their wonderful projects.

Tags added

COLLABORATIVE MURAL UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

The Green Academy and the Art Department have been working together to transform a barren section of the school into a piece of environmentally inspired art. Energized by the street art around Austin, students and teachers sought to produce a piece of work that would connect our diverse student interests and backgrounds. Students wanted to create a bright, vivid, simple, motivational, and "Selfie-worthy" piece of work that any could find enjoyment in,

After scouting locations on campus that would provide a large enough canvas to encapsulate the artistic vision, students worked to find the most environmentally conscience paint. Once paint was located and purchased, the long process began of taping, painting, drying and repeat.

We are very close to completing this project that began in the Fall semester of 2014. Here are the photographs of our progress so far.

Priming and sealing the porous brick 

Measuring and staking the center of the wall to allow the sun and its rays to be drawn symmetrically and easier

Penciling out our design

Penciled design

Taping over the pencil

Begin of  yellow paint application

YELLOW PAINT!

Sun?

Finishing the sun and its rays.

Clean up, clean up, everybody cleans up!

Orange background.

What's next? COMING SOON!

Posers posing for a selfie demonstration.

Spring Plant Sale and Funky Chicken Coop Tour

The Spring Plant Sale dates have been set! 

This year we will be having a 3 day event over 2 weeks! The first week the sale is on Thursday April 10 and Friday April 11 during the school day from 9 am to 5 pm. This will allow us to have a large number of student volunteers and will accommodate attendants' varying schedules. The second week the plant sale will be on Saturday April 19 from 10 am to 4 pm. We are attempting to test out which arrangement of dates and days will help raise more fund for the Green Academy. As always we will be selling native Texas plants, herbs, and vegetables that have been propagated by students and donated generously Emerald Garden Nursery. (http://www.pondsandgarden.com/)

 Plant sizes range from 4 inch pots to 5 gallons. Prices start at $3 and go up to $50.
Students will be available to give tours of our extensive gardens. If you see it growing on our campus, there's a good chance we will have it for sale.
Don't forget to buy a t-shirt or two!

Here are list of the plants we usually carry. We can get many others and usually will have many more. 


Texas Red Bud
Mexican Plum
Fragrant Mimosa (in bloom)
Possumhaw
Yaupon Holly
Wax Myrtle
Anacacho Orchid (in bloom)
Crossvine (in bloom)
Montezuma Cypress
Monterey Oak
Red Yucca (in bloom)
Twist Leaf Yucca
Manfreda (in bloom)
Gulf Muhly
Lindheimer Muhly
Inland Sea Oats
Blue Eyed Grass (in bloom)
White Coneflower
Purple Coneflower (in bloom)
Cedar Sage
Salvia Cleavelandii
Snake Herb
Red Columbine
Wedelia
Fluttermills
Datura
Texas Betony
Wooly Stemoda
Chocolate Daisy
Texas Rock Rose (in bloom)
Apache Plume (in bloom)
Chili Pequin
Arroyo Sweetwood
Escarpment Cherry

Larger trees and other species are available by request.


The Saturday date was also chosen to go along with our inclusion in the Funky Chicken Coop Tour. (http://austincooptour.org/) Please visit their site


for more information.  This is some of the information provided about the event on their site:

The 6th Annual Austin Funky Chicken Coop Tour, April 19, 2014. Begin the day with a stop by Coop Tour Headquarters, at Sunshine Community Gardens in a cooperative arrangement withTexas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, 4814 Sunshine Drive, Austin, Texas 78756. The Tour’s coops are open for tour goers from 10:00am-4:00pm. Coop Tour Headquarters will include coop tour and cycling registration, vendors, and a free education center, nestled throughout Sunshine Community Gardens, with their own onsite coop and chickens.
https://www.facebook.com/AustinFunkyChickenCoopTour 
Twitter @afct
Flickr athttp://www.flickr.com/photos/austincooptour