by Fidel Moreno
WOW! was the first word that came to mind after attending Darrow School’s First Annual Sustainability Symposium on April 21 and 22 (Earth Day). The two day symposium was the brainchild and shared vision of Craig Westcott, Director of Darrow’s Sampson Environmental Center, Alexandria Heddinger, Director of Advancement, Lisa Leary, Special Events Coordinator and the Darrow administration under the directorship of Nancy Wolf.
Darrow School provides and encourages a wide range of student applications and educational components that are both compelling and timely given our present day global environments and lifestyles. One of the cornerstone curriculum programs is the Samson Environmental Center, embracing the Shaker legacy of sustainability and stewardship. The Center and program focus on responsible management of the environment, the social and political and economic resources that encourage students to discover and assess viable sustainable technologies and practical applications and their impact on self, community, the global society or as some would call it the global village.
The Darrow School property was once a Shaker community and is now the home of this thriving educational institution. The Darrow students are positive and eager to engage in conversations about the emerging world order, Obama, healing, sustainable gardening and the Yankees and Red Sox. It was a relief to find that a private preparatory school like Darrow could not divert the youthful minds from the wonders and love of baseball.
It is extraordinary that a school like Darrow is hosting and facilitating a two day symposium for its students and inviting outside presenters, educators, private sector alternative energy company representatives and environmental networks from Vermont, New York and Massachusetts to explore the impact of sustainability on culture, science and public policy.
The symposium key note speaker and presenter was Sarah Gardner, Associate Director for the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, MA. She opened the symposium with a very sobering evaluation of where we are presently as a bio-region, a nation and globally. She said that we have in our power the ability to have a positive impact through lifestyle choices and sound sustainable applications and the responsibility to make this positive impact.
Another WOW was the Living Machine, a building that houses several large cisterns holding organisms that eat (as in breakdown and digest) all of the septic waste matter (liquid and solid) the Darrow school population of students, teachers and guests produce. The by-product of natural septic waste composting are a wide assortment of flowers, grasses, plants and herbs indigenous to the region. Greens grow quite robustly from the nutrient and protein rich waste matter processed in the multi-step holding tanks which transform the waste materials into gray water that sustains the rapid growth cycles of the flora ad fauna. Currently, Darrow sells Easter lilies and other greens to a local florist.
The presenters’ round table discussion included a Q & A with Dicken Crane of Holiday Brook Farms, Tom Ingersol, Community Forester and Director of New Leaf Radio, several Darrow School alumni, Rick Brown, Conway School of Landscape Design, David Darling, Development and Management Specialist, Advisor to the Polish Ministry of Food and Agriculture and Mike Hardigan, Architect and Senior Project Designer at Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy in Boston to name a few.
The “Hands to Work” activities, another Shaker tradition of inspiring creative skills in building and problem solving, are an integral weekly practice that is mandatory for all Darrow students.
In my “hands to work” sector and time slot, I brought my 24 foot tipi. Several female students and about seven male students with two faculty were put to the task of erecting a not so small Northern Plains style tipi. They listened quite attentively to instructions and became quickly and intuitively aware that this was not just another “tent” to be put together and raised. One, the poles are about 20 to 25 feet long and of Maple, so they are heavy and potentially capable of injuring anyone not paying close attention to what directives are being given in raising the tipi.
After the explaining that this tipi is used for ceremonies and prayers offered for healing and wellness, the whole process took on a whole other energy and conscious awareness by the students. Head of the school, Nancy Wolf, jumped in and worked with the students to complete the job. The tipi was raised and looked good, too. Sometimes miscalculations are made and tipi covers come off, and the poles are brought down and, after re-measuring, the tipi raising is attempted again, sometimes 2 or 3 times. The Darrow “hands to work” team raised the tipi successfully the first time.
The Sustainability Symposium was a great success if measured by the positive energy level and the passionate discussions between presenters, guests, teachers and students. The lunch time open session was a dynamic experience for all involved as it involved participation where adults and students were allowed to come up to a microphone and announce a table session issue or subject that they wanted other like-minded students or adults to engage in to identify solutions, creative ideas and problem solving. Some of the session themes were Eco-Tourism, Personal Sacrifice and Sustainability and many others.