How Zealous Schools Is Pioneering What It Means to Be “Sustainable”
Every winter, a modest pile of snow builds up at the bottom of my driveway in the same spot along the curb where the plow guy puts the excess powder from the back alley. This pile eventually turns to hard snow and then to ice. When we take the trash out, the mound of ice prevents the garbage can from sitting flat on the ground.
This mini-glacier stubbornly persists through many winter months, sunny days and occasional shovel attacks. It takes its time and slowly melts away by April or May, and then we sweep up the sand pebbles that are left behind.
This year it does not exist.
The temperatures have been too high and the snow has not fallen in Eagle County the way it has in past years. The local golf course was reopened on St. Patrick’s Day, and the ice rink in the town park is an elaborate puddle with a tarp underneath. As I write this, cameras on I-70 show heavy rain at the Eisenhower Tunnel, not snow. The trails in Eagle are already “dusty”, a sign that the moisture is gone and bike tires are already churning up the top layer of soft dirt. It is March, the month that is historically the snowiest.
Addressing Climate Change Head On
The optimistic interpretation of this year’s unseasonably warm weather says, “Hey, these warm temperatures are great. We can play more golf and mountain bike earlier in the season.”
But deep down, most of us are concerned about the ways our mountain communities are being impacted by climate change. The natural world is being affected and so are the human systems that rely on it, such as our economy and our way of life.
For some, the idea of climate change is so big that it seems futile to take any significant action. What can one person do?
Others choose to believe that each of us can do more to live sustainably. We can buy less stuff and we can take steps to reduce our carbon footprints. We can learn to manage our daily needs while living with less. We can advocate for governments and corporations to take responsibility for mitigating waste and greenhouse gas emissions. In short, we can all make an impact in the global effort to stem the tide of climate change.
This belief is at the foundation of our new school community in the Town of Eagle, Zealous Schools.
Zealous aims to create healthy citizens, critical thinkers and zealous learners. And it is the first school in Colorado to commit to being a Zero Energy Community (ZEC). A ZEC is one that has greatly reduced energy needs through efficiency gains such that the balance of energy for vehicles, thermal, and electrical energy within the community is met by renewable energy.
In order to achieve this, students and staff will look at demand- and supply-side initiatives. To reduce demand, we will look for ways to make our school building more efficient. We’ll ask people in our community to reduce their carbon footprints through simple yet innovative behavior changes—and our students, academic coaches, and administrators will aspire to practice everything they preach. When it comes to increasing our clean energy supply, Zealous will partner with local solar providers to install photovoltaic (PV) solar panels while financing these projects through third party partners.
Each of these efforts will be informed by Zealous’ science curriculum, which links the subjects of biology, chemistry and physics to sustainable living. It is not enough to ask kids to memorize science flashcards about ‘global warming’, as we did in middle school in the 1980’s. We need kids out in the community catalyzing meaningful change with thoughtful action projects.
Preparation for a More Sustainable World
While we can’t predict the future, we are confident our kids will grow up in a world with significantly less oil and coal. If we can adjust now, in 2018, we won’t have to impulsively react to the necessary behavior changes required by rising costs of fossil fuels.
Indeed, this sort of “practice model” is exactly what schools of the past were designed to do—prepare our children to live and thrive in the economy and society of the future. At Zealous Schools, our aim is to position our kids to lead positive change toward a more sustainable world.
As annoying as the ice dam at the bottom of the driveway may be, it isn’t something we want to eliminate. It is something we want to preserve! Just as we are adapting to warm weather sports this March, we need to adapt to the fossil-fuel-free economy of tomorrow. We can either live in denial and be forced into a volatile adaptation, or we can make gentle behavioral changes today that will support a thriving community tomorrow. Get sustainable, get zealous!
Geoff Grimmer is the Co-Founder of Zealous Schools and former Headmaster of the Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy.