Search
Sustainability at Hopkins
Sustainability Board
Hopkins is dedicated to fostering a nurturing and sustainable environment for its students. Among others, Hopkins features a tray-less cafeteria, rain garden, and trail cameras to capture wildlife, such as deer, foxes, and migratory birds. These initiatives have significantly reduced waste, fostered biodiversity awareness, and encouraged students to actively engage in environmental stewardship by providing hands-on opportunities to galvanize environmental change.
Sustainability Board (or SusBo) at Hopkins is composed of passionate students dedicated to making a difference both at Hopkins and in the greater New Haven community. SusBo hosts rallies, petitions, clean-ups, campus sub-lesson and education events, and sustainable crafts. Past events include hosting a tree-planting initiative in collaboration with local nonprofits and organizing a sustainability-themed art exhibition. Through collaborations with local environmental organizations, SusBo has extended its impact beyond Hopkins, helping to improve green spaces and promote sustainability across New Haven.
SusBo is split into four subcommittees (Energy, Natural Environment, Waste, and Climate Action) and partners with affiliated organizations and clubs. The Energy subcommittee focuses on reducing campus energy consumption and increasing renewable energy usage, while the Natural Environment subcommittee prioritizes conservation and biodiversity projects. Waste aims to improve recycling and composting initiatives, and Climate Action advocates for policies and awareness related to climate change.
Energy
The Energy Subcommittee is dedicated to fostering sustainable energy practices throughout our Hopkins community, both on and off campus. We recognize that energy is a vital component of our daily lives, impacting everything from how we learn and work to how we connect and grow. By promoting mindful and responsible energy use, we strive to cultivate a culture that values sustainability and recognizes the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. Our mission goes beyond simply conserving energy; it’s about inspiring positive action, and building a healthier, more resilient community for future students. Together, we can make a significant difference in our environment by embracing sustainable energy use and helping each of us contribute to a greener, cleaner future.
During Earth Week 2024, we co-hosted a Middle Ground together with Young Democrats and Young Republicans. There, we discussed nuclear power, the Green New Deal, oil pipelines, and more. These kinds of community conversations are especially important in generating genuine conversation and encouraging collaboration and listening.
Pollution from livestock production largely comes from animal waste, which can runoff into our waterways and harm aquatic ecosystems, destroy topsoil, and contaminate the air – which all have harmful effects on wild animals AND humans. During Earth Week, the Sustainability Board initiates a week-long “vegetarian pledge.” This offers some students their first exposure to a meatless diet. Students reflected on the experience, describing it as “surprisingly fulfilling”.
We made custom receptacles in a sustainable manner to collect single-use batteries. Single-use batteries are often not disposed of properly, and so they can end up in landfills, leaking chemicals into the Earth. The Energy Subcommittee arranged for these batteries on campus to be collected and then properly recycled to avoid these jarring environmental consequences and to use our resources more efficiently.
The Energy Subcommittee is currently working on a week-long initiative to promote sustainable dieting in January 2025. This multifaceted program focuses on the health and environmental benefits of eating sustainably. By dedicating a week in the new year to considering more sustainable dining choices, we hope to contribute to a culture of sustainability in our community and create a lasting impact on how our campus chooses to eat.
Natural Environment
Natural Environment is a subcommittee under the Sustainability Board that promotes student awareness of the Hopkins grounds and the land around them. We hope to educate students about the native plants and animals that live here. During the year, we meet with our club members and take nature walks, all while identifying and learning about native plants we find in the woods. We collect pictures of Hopkins wildlife and post them to the Hopkins community.
During the 2023-2024 school year, the Natural Environment subcommittee held a banner-painting session in upper heath for Sustainability Board’s fall festival. Along with bake sale trivia and The Lorax screening, the event was a great success. During Earth week, we collaborated with Climate Action to host a nature walk to the Maltby Lakes on campus. We also had a paint-a-succulent pot station for students to paint a succulent pot for a teacher. Finally, we helped Climate Action with their tree-planting project and seeded two of our own large pots with native plants and flowers.
Sustainability Board has installed both a rain garden and eight native trees on campus (five sugar maple and three birch) to act as a buffer for rainflow erosion. The rain garden includes plants conducive to native pollinators: three-fourths of the world's flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world's food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce; one out of every three bites of food you eat.
In the 2024-2025 school year, the committee is working on showing the wildlife on campus with trail cameras and pictures displayed on the TVs as well as pictures of invasive and native plants to educate the community on their effects. Alongside this, Natural Environment is working to prevent birds from crashing into the windows of buildings with stickers that allow the birds to see the windows. The committee also held a bake sale in October and collaborated with the Red Cross Club to promote healthier public transportation and reduce the release of fossil fuels through transportation. For Earth Week this year, Natural Environment is planning to hold a whole school Bingo card event, with many nature related activities to help promote good interactions between Hopkins students and the environment.
Waste
The Waste Subcommittee focuses on educating the Hopkins community on waste management. We believe that informing Hopkins students on these topics is important because effective consideration of waste production and disposal has an infinitely positive impact on our environment.
Last year, Waste reached out to the APAC construction crew for old wooden palettes that were planning on being thrown away. After collecting 10-20 palettes, we took them apart, restored the wood for a waste bin construction project. In many wooden palettes, the wood is treated so that it can be stored in damp environments for storage purposes. Although some are treated with harmful chemicals, many are just simple solutions so that they decay less rapidly. This means the wood from wooden palettes can survive harsh weather conditions, making it perfect for an outdoor waste bin for our quad. After constructing the bin with entirely reused materials, it was brought out to the quad during earth week and the Hopkins community decorated it, with nature scenery on all sides. The waste bin has both a recycling and trash bin in it and has helped prevent littering and continue recycling on our campus. Keep an eye out for it!
Our preliminary projects focused on reducing the overall waste output and contamination on the Hopkins campus. We noticed that individual trash and recycling bins in each classroom produced a large amount of plastic waste from each bag and were becoming cross-contaminated, resulting in wasted recycling potential. To combat this, we implemented bigger trash and recycling bins in the hallway on the third floor of Baldwin and removed the smaller bins from each classroom. This cut down on plastic bag waste while also making students more aware of what type of waste they were putting into what bin.
Future projects aim to actively include more of the Hopkins community. These projects include clothing drives that work with local charities to collect old winter clothing or accessories to be donated. This centers around the use of donation boxes set up around campus, such as in the Athletic Center and Thompson Hall, and encourages students to get involved with sustainability in an accessible way. Other projects include using campus-based productions such as arts magazine Daystar to publish a sustainable arts section in their spring issue, featuring student work that uses recycled materials or focuses on sustainability as a topic, inspired by former visiting artists.
Climate Action
What is it?
Climate Action is a subcommittee of the Sustainability Board focused on addressing climate issues in our school, local, and global communities. Our primary focuses as a club are climate awareness and advocacy within our community. We encourage the Hopkins community to take action against climate issues via digital media and schoolwide events.
In previous years, we have planted a rain garden and eight trees native to Connecticut on campus. These flora can limit erosion in our school due to their root systems underground. We aided in constructing and painting a waste bin outside of Heath Commons. Furthermore, we have created beeswax wraps and led nature walks for our school community.
In the future, we aim to expand our advocacy to the school newspaper and the televisions around campus. We seek to engage more of the school community in our sustainability efforts. We will partner
We differ from the other subcommittees because our primary objective is climate awareness and advocacy within our community. We additionally encourage the Hopkins community to take action against these issues through the use of digital media. Our primary goal as a club is to raise awareness in the Hopkins community for the issues that climate change presents. We organize bake sales throughout the year to fundraise and advocate for different environmental causes. We also help the Sustainability Board as a whole with communication and raising awareness about sustainability throughout the whole school. In the past couple of years we have done tree planting, painting banners, nature walks, beeswax wraps, planted a garden, and more!
Supported petitions:
Partner organizations:
New Haven Green Fund
Shoreline Greenway Trail
Edgerton Park Conservancy
Save the Sound
Recent Updates
List of 5 items.
-
Ongoing Projects
Read More -
Winter Recap!
Read More -
Ongoing Projects
Read More -
Sustainability Board at the Holiday Fair
Read More -
December Update from SusBo
For the 2024-2025 school year, the Sustainability Board has been actively fostering positive change within the Hopkins community. Recently, Climate Action hosted a bake sale on November 8, with proceeds supporting Save the Sound, an organization dedicated to combating climate change and restoring ecosystems.
The Waste Subcommittee introduced larger recycling and trash bins on Baldwin’s third floor, replacing smaller classroom bins to reduce plastic waste and contamination while encouraging mindful waste disposal. They plan to compare the trash/recycling distribution to the floors without the standardized bins and if proven successful will invest in larger bins throughout the campus. Stay mindful of where you put your trash!
The Natural Environment Subcommittee has been working to educate the community about local ecosystems by setting up trail cameras to capture photos of wildlife and native plants, with plans to display these images on campus TVs. Keep an eye out for new pictures! They also organized bake sales with petitions in October to support environmental awareness. On September 21, board members volunteered in a Shoreline Greenway Trail cleanup with CT Audubon.
The Energy Subcommittee set up battery recycling bins throughout campus. Although batteries are often thrown out alongside standard trash, it is oftentimes more valuable to separate them. Almost all states (with the exception of California) deem single use batteries acceptable to throw out, but most states deem throwing away rechargeable batteries illegal because of the corrosive materials within them. The environmental impacts from carelessly throwing away batteries can be larger than imagined, so be mindful of where you put your old batteries. If you have a suggestion for where to set up more bins, reach out!
Looking ahead, the Energy Subcommittee is planning a Veganuary in January 2025 to promote sustainable dieting, emphasizing the health and environmental benefits of conscious eating with faculty sponsorships and active engagement with the community. Climate Action aims to expand outreach through the Razor and campus TVs, engaging more students in sustainability efforts. The Natural Environment Subcommittee will install bird-safe window stickers on the Athletics Center to prevent bird collisions.
Keep an eye out for the Sustainability Board at the holiday fair on December 13th, where we will be arranging succulent planting activities and beeswax wrapping to promote sustainable practices and environmental appreciation.
-
-
Voted #1
Best Day School
in CT, 2024
-
Hopkins is a private middle school and high school for grades 7-12. Located on a campus overlooking New Haven, CT, the School takes pride in its intellectually curious students as well as its dedicated faculty and staff.
