Student Motivated Sustainability Projects at the Oak Knoll School, Summit, NJ

Alex Huegel, a student at the Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child in Summit, NJ, has developed plans for sustainability education across grades K-12.

She has been involved in sustainability efforts in her school and attended the AMS annual conference in 2023, where she presented a poster on the AMS precollege chapter her and her classmate started, and Alex Huegel was able to both attend talks and have discussions with educators about sustainability and education. Her classmate, Carson Didden, also presented at the 2023 AMS conference. Both her presentation and project, as well as conversations Alex had with members of AMS inspired Alex Huegel to begin her project to aid her school in its efforts toward sustainability. When she was brought onto the school's sustainability board, she attended a meeting discussing the need to incorporate sustainability into the school-wide curriculum. She then created a plan to begin research and find materials to create sustainability education plans and projects for Oak Knoll.

Alex Huegel met with the head of school, head of upper school, and other faculty and identified the areas where sustainability could be incorporated into the curriculum, such as reading material, school trips, and more. Alex Huegel began research on material that could be used and tried to identify what would be the most beneficial and engaging for each specific age group. She also explored the idea of using more hands-on learning, especially with the younger grades, to keep them engaged and interested. She is in the process of getting approval to source recycled materials to build a greenhouse at the school where the younger students will learn about growing their own food and will be able to do hands-on activities to further their knowledge. Alex is also in the process of creating a new course for grades 11 and 12, where students will be able to create their own projects regarding sustainability, through different paths like research projects, education plans, or maintaining the carbon database set up by Carson Didden. Alex is also currently working with the CEO to continue Carson Didden’s work on the Carbon Database and upkeep it for the year.

The end goal of this project is to have materials for educating grades K-12 on sustainability, as well as giving opportunity to current and future students to help aid the school and do research on sustainability.