By Louise Oppenheimer
Introduction by PS 110 Sustainability Coach, Fran Agnone
Fifth grader Louise Oppenheimer is one of several students at PS 110 working closely with math teacher Matt DiCarlo on an ongoing student blog documenting the sustainability efforts across the school. I am humbled to introduce the following article that Louise chose to highlight my work at the schools. It is a pleasure to be part of such a wonderful and supportive school community where we can all work together to bring sustainability efforts alive. Make sure you check out the work of other students, including Olivia Carden’s profile of the new STEAM lab. Without further ado, here is Louise’s insider report on PS 110 and its sustainability coach!
Ms. Agnone is our amazing green leader. She has been at PS 110 for a year and a half and has done so many amazing things not only for our school, but for Greenpoint as well. Before she was here, we didn’t know how to recycle or compost properly. We had one trash can in each classroom, one trash bin and one cartons bin in the cafeteria. We just didn’t care. And then suddenly, Poof! Ms. Agnone came! She has taught us about everything, from animals to recycling and pollution. Now, in addition to our trash can, we have a food scraps bin, a paper bin and even a hard plastics bin in each and every classroom and the cafeteria.
So many things have changed for the better. Every student and teacher has been taught to their full extent about everything they need to know about going green. We now, thanks to Ms. Agnone, have an afterschool STEAM program (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics) where any student can learn about pretty much everything. She has always supported everybody’s ideas and has come up with many of her own. Last year, she created the green team, where a group of students every week get together during recess. They keep close records of every class, taking note of how they are recycling and if they are being respectful of the environment. This is only one example of the many things she has added to our school community.
To find out more, we were able to conduct an interview with Ms. Agnone to discover more of her thoughts on how PS 110 was improving. When asked what the most major accomplishment was after her arrival, Ms. Agnone stated, “I think we have an amazing recycling program that we all worked together to achieve.” But the school still has a few challenges to overcome. When asked about what was still a green problem, and what could be improved upon, Ms. Agnone brought up an interesting obstacle, “Right now, the students are doing amazingly and are very good at recycling and composting. At PS 110, the teachers are the main problem. They are not acting responsibly and can definitely improve their habits.”
Though PS 110 still has some work to do, clearly Ms. Agnone has been an extraordinary addition to our school and community and we are all very thankful. We can’t wait to see what we can accomplish next with her help!