BSU sustainability project: Muncie high schools take on waste with environmental education

Editor's Note: The following is part of a class project initiated in the classroom of Ball State University professor Adam Kuban, who challenged his students to find sustainability efforts in the Muncie area. Several such stories are being featured in November and December 2021.

MUNCIE, Ind. – Elementary school students can have a significant impact on the environment, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management believes, as they partake in waste minimization and pollution prevention curriculum.

However, for some schools in Muncie, education on the environment doesn’t stop at the elementary-school level. Lance Brand, faculty supervisor of the Environmental Club at Delta High School, said teaching high school students about the environment is “one of the most important things (we) can do.”

Brand said he started the club because he didn’t think people were aware enough of human contribution to the planet.

“(High schoolers’) knowledge and respect for the planet and the choice they make over their lifetime will be huge to the health of all of us and our planet for generations to come,” said Brand.

The group started 15 years ago and runs a weekly recycling program at Delta High School, said Brand, adding they try to complete four road cleanups quarterly through Adopt-a-Highway, participate in the White River and Mississinewa River Cleanups and in Pepsi’s recycle rally program.

More: BSU sustainability project: Muncie composting organization growing

Another school, Muncie Central High School, gives students the opportunity to understand the environment from an extracurricular standpoint, but it focuses on one tactic to improve the environment: recycling.

“You hear bad things about, you know, ‘young people don’t want to do anything,’ right?” said Allen Kidd, the Recycling Club advisor at Muncie Central High School. “I’d say, have young people been given the opportunities to contribute? Have they been asked to contribute? Have they had the chance?”

Kidd thinks the recycling club gives students that chance.

The club was founded in 2008 by Muncie Central students, said Kidd. He wasn’t new to the world of recycling, having had a part-time job at a recycling company when he was younger, and was asked to be an advisor for the club.

“Recycling is the process of collecting and processing materials that would otherwise be thrown away as trash and turning them into new products,” according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Kidd said the group, over the past 13 and a half years, has recycled 490,000 pounds, which is the weight of a little more than 19 semi-trucks.

He also said the group recycles roughly 1,000 pounds a week, which would be about 143 pounds every day within a seven-day week.

“For 14 straight years, every Friday — maybe it’s only three, other times maybe it’s 13 — but I’ve had at least a few students show up every single week,” Kidd said. “So I think that alone states their commitment.”

More: Ball State University sustainability project: Cover crops save money and the soil

Marnell Bishop, head of the science department at Muncie Central, also incorporates recycling in a short lesson in her chemistry classes — and she’s not the only one who teaches about the environment in her classes.

When Bishop informally asked other teachers in the science department whether they teach about the environment in their classes, she said she determined that two teachers talk about renewable versus nonrenewable resources — one following up with recycling — and said two biology teachers have some shorter sections on renewable vs nonrenewable resources, sustainable development, carbon footprints, acid rain and pollution. There’s also an AP class on environmental science at Muncie Central, she said.

One of the science standards in Indiana involves teaching students how to be good stewards of the world around them, how to make good decisions and know what impact they’re making on their world, Bishop said. One of the chemistry standards is to talk about the differences between physical and chemical properties of materials and the textbook she follows has a short excerpt about how the physical properties of materials are used to help sort them in the recycling process, she said.

Bishop has a recycling system in her classroom with different tubs from the recycling club for recyclable materials, and is passionate about recycling.

“When people throw things in the trash, I make them get it out and put it in the recycling,” Bishop said. “And they get mad at me, they’re like, ‘I don’t want to dig in the trash.’ ‘Well, then you shouldn’t throw it in the trash.’”

Bishop believes we should be teaching students about recycling, but she also believes what we teach is not enough.

“It’s a bigger topic than just teaching them to recycle ...Too many people who are teaching this aren’t teaching the whole story,” Bishop said. “It’s really not just about recycling. It’s about what are we doing with the material that you’re trying to personally recycle? Are they making it to a plant? Are they getting thrown away? Why are they getting thrown away? Do we have enough recycling plants?”

However, despite the confusion recycling and caring for the planet can provide, Kidd said he believes high school students understand the need to care for the environment.

“I don’t know if they necessarily could explain all the science of climate change, (but) they understand that a lot of things are going in the wrong direction and need to change quickly,” Kidd said.

Brand has continuously seen students become passionate about the environment through his club.

“Every year I find a small group of students who are really passionate about taking care of our planet and will step in … to take charge of many of our activities,” Brand said.

As for Bishop, she believes high school students need to have broader knowledge than just recycling because, as she puts it, “They’re the next generation of problem solvers.”

The Environmental Club at Delta High School and the Recycling Club at Muncie Central High School meet most weeks on Thursday and Friday, respectively, as they continue to pursue environmental education — within their own classrooms, school hallways and right outside school doors.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Sustainability: Muncie schools tackling environmental education