Unified Education Strategy Grants

San Carlos School District

• Grantee Information
• Opportunities and Obstacles
• Diversion Successes
• Lessons Created
• Partnerships
• Program Contacts

Grantee Information

San Carlos School District is located midway between San Francisco and San Jose on the San Francisco Peninsula. The district consists of four elementary (K–4) schools, two middle (grades 5–8) schools, and one K–8 charter school. Enrollment is approximately 2,600, with about 360 students in each elementary school, 498 in Central Middle School, 485 in Tierra Linda Middle School, and 260 in the San Carlos Charter Learning Center.

Although San Carlos School District has taught various resource management methods such as source reduction, recycling, and composting, as well as energy and water conservation, the lessons were not taught in a unified and consistent manner. The district acknowledged the lack of alignment between their standards-based instructional programs and materials and the resource conservation principles they wanted their students to learn.

San Carlos School District received a UES grant because it expressed an interest in implementing waste diversion activities by developing resource management audit modules for their sixth-grade classes. These modules were used at school sites to provide students with hands-on learning experiences and opportunities to develop problem-solving skills.

Opportunities and Obstacles

• This program had six lead teachers and three administrators from three middle schools involved in its implementation. This provided the opportunity to develop a comprehensive unit for all sixth-grade students throughout the district.
• Finding time for curriculum development and implementation was a bit of a challenge due to the various locations of the teachers and administrators.

Diversion Successes

• Developed student-initiated service-learning opportunities to reduce waste (for example, instituting a recycling collection system on campus and educating other students and teachers about waste reduction).
• Developed community-based investigations resulting in identification of community waste diversion and resource conservation needs (for example, encouraging recycling of printer cartridges, storm drain sign painting, creek and park cleanup, clothing and second-hand materials drives, and use of rechargeable batteries).
• Established environmental clubs that work to solve local environmental problems.

Lessons Created

• The San Carlos Charter Learning Center campus needs assessment (Adobe PDF, 496 KB) contains eight lessons addressing standards in areas such as science, writing, and math.
• Students learned to plan, design, and complete a campus waste audit aligned to California’s academic content standards for mathematics (statistics, data analysis, and probability).
• History-social science classes investigated how waste affects the natural and social systems in their community from a historical/social science perspective.
• English/language art students wrote a short narrative essay from the point of view of a piece of trash thrown into the school’s trash container.

Partnerships

• County of San Mateo, Public Works Department
• South Bayside Waste Management Authority
• BFI (Browning Ferris Industries)

Program Contacts

Last updated: April 04, 2008