Youth Energy Summit (YES!) students are cultivating knowledge and eating it, too! Many YES! teams have found that they are passionate about local foods and school gardens. This past school year 4 YES! teams built greenhouses at their schools and 13 YES! teams worked on projects related to school gardens and composting.
YES!, a program partnership between Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF) and Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center (PWELC), is a team-oriented youth program that uses hands-on, experiential learning and energy action projects to address energy opportunities and issues in rural Minnesota communities. YES! students pick projects that relate to their interests and needs in their schools and communities.
After several years of planning and dreaming, the Lac qui Parle Valley YES! team built a 20’ by 40’ passive solar greenhouse last school year. They also installed two solar panels on the roof to power the greenhouse fans (these are solar panels that had been sitting unused at their school because they were too difficult to incorporate into the grid). The students have been growing plants over the summer to harvest this school year. They are growing several varieties of salad greens and other produce to supply the local school district with fresh, organic food for students and staff. They are excited that this will cut down on food miles and that they will be saving on energy costs through their solar panels.
The Litchfield YES! team also found that they were drawn to projects related to food in their community. They grew and gave away over 1,000 pepper plants as part of the One Vegetable, One Community project, which aims to bring community members together around food.
Other YES! teams focused their efforts on composting food waste, a great way to save energy while cutting down on waste and costs. The Cedar Mountain YES! team collected and composted over 4,000 pounds of food waste from their cafeteria last school year. The Dassel-Cokato YES! team collected data on the amount of food waste produced by their school and are pursuing a school-run composting program. In order to inform the public about composting they made brochures about their composting project and what community members could do to compost at home. The GFW YES! team made improvements to their school’s composting program to make it more effective (which included changes to the school lunch waste sorting system). Last school year they composted over 800 pounds of lunch waste and plan to use the compost in their school garden. The Springfield YES! team geared up for their school composting program slated to begin this fall, by designing and conducting a four-week composting education program with the 5th and 6th grade classes in the Springfield Elementary School. A couple of teams are also exploring the possibilities of vermicomposting (composting with worms!)
We’re excited to continue to see these projects flourish and see what other projects YES! teams take on related to local foods and school gardens. To read more about the projects other YES! teams did last school year and to see what YES! teams are up to this year, visit http://www.youthenergysummit.org.
