Six years ago, a teacher at G. W. Carver Middle School and her students had a green dream. They wanted Carver to be an environmentally aware school, where all of the teachers and students paid attention to the amount of electricity and water they used in school and at home. Through multiple presentations to the students, faculty, parents, cafeteria and custodial staffs, the students spread their message to the entire school.
Since 2007, students have been given access to the schools’ electricity and water bills. They monitor them as changes are implemented around the school. Window stripping was added to all classroom doors and windows, light bulbs were changed, trees and other plants were added to the campus along with rain barrels, new thermostats were installed in the auditorium and cafeterias and a recycling program was put in place by the students. A company donated the time and materials to paint the roof of the school white. This year, vacancy sensors are being added to the classrooms. In addition to the changes at school, every Carver student carries out an extensive home energy audit and researches alternative energy sources, as well as climate change. They build solar cookers and graph the temperatures. Since 2007, over $52,000 has been saved in electricity at Carver Middle School, we’ve reduced our kilowatt usage by over 300K and our carbon emissions by more than 300,000 lbs.
G.W. Carver has an environmentally-astute student body. Suddenly, last summer, in July of 2013, an article appeared in the Miami Herald which drew our attention. The building facing Carver’s P.E. Field was a former garbage incinerator, once known as Old Smokey. The City of Miami has been testing for lead, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals all around our school and our neighborhood. Four of our parks have been closed.
We wanted to learn more.
One of the security guards at Carver grew up next to the site, and the park she had played at her whole life, Douglas Park, was closed last November. She as well wanted to learn more. Her neighbors were asking questions. She recalls telling her friends, "Let’s go play at the incinerator.” She raised her own children nearby, and is now concerned and looking for answers.
Other G.W. Carver students, are concerned, because they only live a few hundred yards from Old Smokey. What does this mean for their families and their property value?
As we continued our research, we read a scientific journal which stated that our school and neighborhood was in a pancreatic cancer cluster. One of Carver’s most beloved teachers lived across from our school since 1981. She died of pancreatic cancer in June of 2011. As news of the contamination began to break last summer, her illness was on the minds of all who worked with her here at Carver Middle School. Was there any connection to Old Smokey?
This is when we, the students of Carver Middle School, realized we could do something for our community. We could learn about the issue, make phone calls, invite experts to come and speak with us.
We went to a public hearing held by the city. We learned that the soil and groundwater near Old Smokey were found to have unsafe concentrations of lead and cadmium. Other tests found high concentrations of arsenic and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). Incinerator ash from Old Smokey (with very high levels of contaminants) was found in half the sampled locations. More than two-thirds of the samples contained unsafe concentrations of arsenic.
We invited the engineer whose company tested all of the samples for the city to come and teach us how to do soil samples and how to interpret the data. We also had an attorney from the University of Miami Law Environmental Justice Project, who worked with the city on this issue come to our class.
Another one of our G.W. Carver students was worried because she has played at Merrie Christmas Park her entire life. This park has been fenced off since September 2013. She even tested the soil at our school, Merrie Christmas Park, the deceased teacher’s backyard, and her own backyard. She had her results double-checked by a professional lab, because in science, results should be repeatable.
Many of our city parks were former dump sites so, another one of our Carver students tested the soils at these parks. Her two older sisters tested the soil samples from parks for their science fair projects, too. She has 9 years of data, making this longitudinal study more valuable.
After we learned how the science was carried out and how it was guiding public policy, we could do our part to inform the public. We asked a specialist in computer information systems to teach us how to create a website where we could collect all of the evidence together.
Our website includes:
We hope the public can use our website to relieve their immediate fears about Old Smokey and get informed.
Since 2007, students have been given access to the schools’ electricity and water bills. They monitor them as changes are implemented around the school. Window stripping was added to all classroom doors and windows, light bulbs were changed, trees and other plants were added to the campus along with rain barrels, new thermostats were installed in the auditorium and cafeterias and a recycling program was put in place by the students. A company donated the time and materials to paint the roof of the school white. This year, vacancy sensors are being added to the classrooms. In addition to the changes at school, every Carver student carries out an extensive home energy audit and researches alternative energy sources, as well as climate change. They build solar cookers and graph the temperatures. Since 2007, over $52,000 has been saved in electricity at Carver Middle School, we’ve reduced our kilowatt usage by over 300K and our carbon emissions by more than 300,000 lbs.
G.W. Carver has an environmentally-astute student body. Suddenly, last summer, in July of 2013, an article appeared in the Miami Herald which drew our attention. The building facing Carver’s P.E. Field was a former garbage incinerator, once known as Old Smokey. The City of Miami has been testing for lead, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals all around our school and our neighborhood. Four of our parks have been closed.
We wanted to learn more.
One of the security guards at Carver grew up next to the site, and the park she had played at her whole life, Douglas Park, was closed last November. She as well wanted to learn more. Her neighbors were asking questions. She recalls telling her friends, "Let’s go play at the incinerator.” She raised her own children nearby, and is now concerned and looking for answers.
Other G.W. Carver students, are concerned, because they only live a few hundred yards from Old Smokey. What does this mean for their families and their property value?
As we continued our research, we read a scientific journal which stated that our school and neighborhood was in a pancreatic cancer cluster. One of Carver’s most beloved teachers lived across from our school since 1981. She died of pancreatic cancer in June of 2011. As news of the contamination began to break last summer, her illness was on the minds of all who worked with her here at Carver Middle School. Was there any connection to Old Smokey?
This is when we, the students of Carver Middle School, realized we could do something for our community. We could learn about the issue, make phone calls, invite experts to come and speak with us.
We went to a public hearing held by the city. We learned that the soil and groundwater near Old Smokey were found to have unsafe concentrations of lead and cadmium. Other tests found high concentrations of arsenic and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). Incinerator ash from Old Smokey (with very high levels of contaminants) was found in half the sampled locations. More than two-thirds of the samples contained unsafe concentrations of arsenic.
We invited the engineer whose company tested all of the samples for the city to come and teach us how to do soil samples and how to interpret the data. We also had an attorney from the University of Miami Law Environmental Justice Project, who worked with the city on this issue come to our class.
Another one of our G.W. Carver students was worried because she has played at Merrie Christmas Park her entire life. This park has been fenced off since September 2013. She even tested the soil at our school, Merrie Christmas Park, the deceased teacher’s backyard, and her own backyard. She had her results double-checked by a professional lab, because in science, results should be repeatable.
Many of our city parks were former dump sites so, another one of our Carver students tested the soils at these parks. Her two older sisters tested the soil samples from parks for their science fair projects, too. She has 9 years of data, making this longitudinal study more valuable.
After we learned how the science was carried out and how it was guiding public policy, we could do our part to inform the public. We asked a specialist in computer information systems to teach us how to create a website where we could collect all of the evidence together.
Our website includes:
- All of the data the city made public.
- A google map we created of the area with the site of Old Smokey and the closed parks highlighted.
- Links to information on the toxic chemicals in the parks.
- Links to newspapers articles.
We hope the public can use our website to relieve their immediate fears about Old Smokey and get informed.