Green Team Tours Mercedes

Not only has Mercedes helped to make our school recycling program a success, but they also lead the way in the "Zero-Waste-to-Landfill" movement.  They recycle and re-use everything!  The Green Team was invited to tour the Mercedes plant and meet members of the Environmental Affairs Department, as well as get a glimpse of where all the waste collecting, sorting, cleaning, and recycling happens.  BIG THANKS to Karl Moeller, Environmental Engineer, and Bailie Clark, Environmental Affairs Co-Op Student, for giving us the tour and for their help with our school's recycling program!

Canned Food Drive

This is a time of year in which many people reflect upon all the things for which they are thankful.  In many ways, America is the land of the plenty.  Unfortunately, Alabama has one of the highest poverty rates in the country.  One of every five children and one of every four seniors live below the poverty level, and many more Alabamians face "food insecurities," meaning a limited access to food.  For 1 in 6 people living in the United State, hunger is a reality. 

The Brookwood Green Team is collecting canned food items to donate to the West Alabama Food Bank.  During the month of November, bring your canned goods to Ms. Barringer (Room 202) or Mrs. Reynolds (Room 203).  Bring all canned goods by Tuesday November 26th. 

For every five cans that you donate, you will receive one service hour.

 5 cans = 1 service hour

Service Day #1

We had an AWESOME turn out at our first Green Team service day of the year!  Green Team-ers stayed after school to clean up trash from all over the campus.  Bags and bags of trash were collected; thanks for all the hard work guys! 

The Brookwood Green Team with the trash they collected from outside the school building and in the parking lots.

The team that collected the most trash got their very own Green Team t-shirt for a prize. Winners of the Service Day Challenge are pictured left to right - Katie Shaw, Aaron Campbell, and Jamison Elam.

T-Shirts! T-Shirts! Get your t-shirts!

Green Team t-shirts are now on sale!  See Green Team Advisors, Mrs. Reynolds or Ms. Barringer (Rooms 202 & 203), to order yours today!  The oh-so-popular baseball style t-shirt is $20 and the t-shirt is $15.  You may pay with cash or a check made out to "BHS."

(The baseball-style shirt is white with green sleeves even though it looks gray in the picture.)

Krispy Kreme Connection

The Original Brookwood Pink Green-Teamer's, decked-out in pink from head to toe for Brookwood High School's annual "Pink-Out Day" for Breast Cancer, got together for an early morning breakfast meeting to kick-off the recycling program and discuss the start of the Green Team Club.  Trying to get high school students to school for an early morning meeting may not sound like the easiest task.  Fortunately for us, we have a double-dose of a doughnut-connection. Thanks to some super awesome Krispy Kreme employees, our Green Team President , Haley Webb, and Original Green Team-er, Kayla Fomby gave us the doughnut hook-up.  Krispy Kreme doughnuts make early morning meetings totally worth it! 

The Original Green Team-er's pictured left to right: 

Back row - Haley Webb, Morgan Hope Davis, Kayla Fomby; Front row - Joseph McDonald, Dylan Hardeman, Trent Hill

Green Team President and Krispy Kreme extraordinaire, Haley Webb, and Green Team Vice President, Morgan Hope Davis, pose for a picture with some of the yummy doughnuts!  These Green Team officers know how to throw a good meeting!

Let the recycling begin!

Mercedes delivered the storage containers for our collected recyclables in mid-October, and we could officially begin our recycling program!  Environmental science students delivered a "plastic" bin and a "paper" bin to every classroom in the school.  The environmental science classes pick up the collected recyclables every Thursday.

"It's apparent that a lot of trash is generated every day at Brookwood High School.  After only two weeks of collecting paper and plastic from each classroom, our storage containers were completely full!  I'm proud that students and faculty at BHS are all doing their part to help the environment by recycling what they can." - Ms. Barringer, Environmental Science Teacher and Green Team Advisor

Environmental Science students, pictured left to right - Malynda Hancock, KeAndre Richardson, Billie Baham, Tristan Dunn, and Justin Beck,  pose for a picture with Officer Hamner while making their rounds on the first Recycling Pick-Up Day.

When he's not leading the BHS football team as quarterback, DeVonta Jenkins does his part to help with the school recycling program;  Green Team Service Project Coordinators, Jessica Box and Abbie Patterson, pose for a picture with classmate, Joseph Beal, while delivering recyclables to the storage bins; Brandon Stone and Bailey Bunn emptying the plastic bottles before sorting them into the storage bin.

The Original Green Team-ers

The idea to start a school-wide recycling program and a club dedicated to environmental conservation and service came from the 2012-2013 Brookwood High School Environmental Science classes.  These students make up what is now known as "The Original Green Team-ers."

Pictured above are some of "The Original Green Team-ers" during the 2012-2013 school year. 

(Pictured Left to Right - Juniors Haley Webb, Kurtis Mauldin, Noah Huddleston, Kayla Fomby, and Dylan Hardeman)

The Original Green Team worked hard to lay the foundation for a sustainable recycling program.  They first reached out to the Environmental Affairs Department at Mercedes Benz for help and advice on starting a recycling program.  The Mercedes Benz Plant located in Vance, AL, has a zero-waste policy, meaning they recycle or reuse everything!  They understand the importance of recycling, and were so excited to work with the Green Team to get things started; a community partnership was formed.  Mercedes agreed to partner with the Brookwood Green Team by donating storage containers for collected recyclables to Brookwood High School and servicing the recycling containers on a regular basis.  We decided to collect and recycle plastic bottles and paper; each classroom received a labeled bin for each.  By the 2013-2014 school year, Mercedes was able to deliver the storage containers for our collected recyclables and the school-wide recycling program could finally begin!  We placed the storage bins in the parking lot between both the High School and the Elementary School so that both schools could utilize the bins.  The Green Team is currently working with the SGA and faculty at Brookwood Elementary School to start a recycling program at that school as well.

Environmental Science students pick-up the collected recyclable materials from each classroom on Thursday's of each week.  After only two weeks of collecting paper and plastic, our storage containers were completely full!  Mercedes will pick up our collected recyclables, sort the materials, clean the materials, and then sell the materials to various companies.  Green Team Advisor and Science Teacher, Jennifer Reynolds, says "It's exciting to see the program have such a successful start!  Students, faculty, and Mercedes representatives are all excited and on-board with the recycling program.  It's great to see students working together towards a good cause like improving our environment." 

Thanks to the ideas and hard work of "The Original Green Team," the school-wide recycling program has gotten off to a great start and the Brookwood Green Team was born.  The Brookwood Green Team is an environmental service and conservation club open to any student at Brookwood High School.  The Brookwood Green Team will have fun learning about environmental problems and conservation efforts while participating in service projects throughout the school year to benefit our school, our community, and the environment as a whole.

If you are interested in joining the Brookwood Green Team, then stop by Mrs. Reynolds' or Ms. Barringer's classrooms (Rooms 202 and 203).