Progress 06/01/24 to 05/31/25
Outputs
Target Audience:School teachers, principals, and students at the ten participating schools. Changes/Problems:Initially, MPS set out to have 10 schools in the pilot program for the October 2024 launch. Due to changes at one of the schools, the program only launched with nine schools. After a couple of months, the project team was able to onboard a tenth school into the program. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In the fall of 2024, the Composting Committee held a one-hour, paid professional development session for 20 of the program's compost champions, representing nine schools. This session was modeled as a training to review the program guide that was developed, answer questions, and distribute supplies. Following the launch of the program, Compost Committee members visited each school weekly to provide hands-on training for students and staff.Throughout the first year, additional training for students and staff was provided on an as-needed basis. When a tenth school was added to the pilot program, that school's compost champions were provided with the full one-hour training program. In the spring of 2025, a second one-hour, paid professional development session was held for compost champions at ten schools. This session was modeled as a community conversation. In small groups, participants shared their program successes, challenges, and lessons learned. The group discussed shared challenges and lessons learned. The session also presented guidance on how schools should plan to scale up their operations in Year 2. This could include expanding to additional lunch periods, increasing communication about the program to the school, adding a share table, and expanding curriculum offerings. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Materials developed for the program and preliminary data on program successes have been disseminated in three ways. First, schools not participating in the pilot program but that have been interested in food waste collection in their school cafeteria were provided with the V 2.0 of the MPS Guide to School Food Waste Collection and Reduction. Second, the program was shared in key presentations with the school district administration. Third, the district's sustainability project specialist presented the program and shared draft materials at the U.S. Green Building Council's Center for Green Schools Facilities Leaders Summit in March 2025. ? What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Going into year two, all schools are being asked to evaluate the success of their current program using the program rubric to decide whether to expand food waste collection into additional lunch periods or implement sharing tables with the support of the School Nutrition kitchen staff. Schools will continue to infuse waste and composting-specific curriculum into lessons throughout all school grade levels. From April to June 2026, program materials and the MPS Guide to Food Waste Collection and Reduction will be finalized, published, and distributed across the district.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. Divert organic waste from school dumpsters to lessen landfill reliability and practice sustainability. Over seven months, 28,474 pounds of food waste were diverted from the landfill by ten schools' cafeteria food waste collection programs. 2. Provide hands-on education and curricular connections to students about composting and food recovery. Educators were provided practical strategies for integrating curricular resources for food waste, composting, and recycling into their existing curricula. During professional development/educator training, teachers were provided grade band resources for composting lesson plans.Teachers in our program reached out to the principal investigator and project team throughout the school year to model composting lessons in their classrooms, or assist students with the understanding of the how-tos, importance of, or reasons why composting and food waste reduction are a key component to sustainability for our planet. Here is an example of a middle school lesson presented to our students. 3. Scale district composting efforts by creating a guide for new schools to adopt programs in their schools. Before the program's October 2024 launch, a first draft of the MPS Guide to Food Waste Collection and Reduction was written and used to train staff compost champions across nine schools. A second draft was published with revisions based on lessons that were learned in the first four months of the program. At the end of year two, a final draft will be published based on data collected over the two years, feedback from school compost champions, and program evaluations. The final version of this document will be published on the district's sustainability website and distributed to schools as a resource. Cost and time/labor data collected throughout the two years will be used to evaluate cost savings that may be incurred by scaling food waste collection more broadly across the district. This information will be used by the facilities and maintenance team to make informed decisions about additional waste reduction measures that could be implemented. Information from the 2024 Waste Audit report will continue to be helpful for this process.
Publications
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