Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/133183
Leave No Trace From recycling, to outdoor education, to community service, social studies teacher Mike McPharlin has had a personal investment in conserving the environment since his early outdoor camping experiences as a child. Arriving at Latin in 1998, McPharlin quietly started a recycling program in the lower school. Beginning with one room of fifth graders, then adding the whole fifth-grade class, a commitment to ownership and responsibility for paper recycling was born. Soon, faculty and staff in all areas and classrooms in the building anticipated the weekly visits from the fifth-grade recycling teams, who collected the contents of the recycling containers. For a decade under McPharlin's continued leadership, fifth graders have taken their jobs seriously. The homeroom setting has been an important venue for helping students to realize that one grade of students can indeed make a difference. McPharlin's ongoing involvement has ensured that sustained recycling is a fifth-grade tradition that has helped to raise the consciousness and encourage the leadership of hundreds of students over the past 10 years. However, McPharlin's zeal for creating a more savvy and engaged generation of ecologically minded fifth graders goes far beyond the recycling bin. Another opportunity he takes advantage of is the annual Lorado Taft outdoor education retreat. For the past seven years, he and his fellow chaperones have emphasized respect for the environment and an understanding of nature as the core of the three-day trip to the Lorado Taft campus in Oregon, Illinois. Students study water ecology and they become actively engaged in recycling by becoming aware of food waste as they weigh refuse from their own cafeteria meals. During the McPharlin-Henelly-Newmark fifth-grade team years, McPharlin says Brian Hennelly and Jeff Newmark were instrumental in adding an outdoor survival skills component to the trip's curriculum that further enriches students' experiences with conservation. "Brian and Jeff designed tasks that teach the students to look at what surrounds them, and to look at existing natural materials that will help them survive and provide shelter. This component has given the students a greater appreciation of their outdoor environment." The central lesson McPharlin hopes the Lorado Taft experiences teaches students is to "leave no trace, and to leave the land better than they found it." Leaving the world a better place than they found it also is reflected in the fifth grade's service project this year. Through the "Dandelion Project," students are being challenged to become expert in an area of service that they are passionate about and to take a leadership role in this area. McPharlin is already enthusiastically supporting the efforts of a number of students who have chosen to make ecology and conservation their way to improve the world. While McPharlin's passion for the environment encourages a guiding principle of "leave no trace" his commitment to increasing awareness and inspiring conservation leadership has left a mark on hundreds of students and continues to make an impact on the entire school community. The Lorado Taft experiences teach students to "leave no trace, and to leave the land better than they found it." • – Linda Hennelly Latin School of Chicago 15