Nov 21
In this season of giving thanks, I would like to express gratitude to many people in the DA community. I’m personally grateful to those who pass me in cars when I’m riding my bike on Pickett Rd. I hear lots of people say how dangerous it is to ride there, but in fact, I rarely …
Jan 04
Total emissions and approaches to reducing them We have the report from Green Places, and it shows that DA generated 3,532 metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2021-22. It’s the answer to a big, important question, yet it generates so many new questions! Some of them were addressed in a presentation on December 19 by …
Nov 18
By Frankie Stover and Tina Bessias NOTE LOCATION CHANGE: This event will take place in Kenan Auditorium at the Upper School. After months of data gathering and analysis, Green Places and the Environmental Sustainability in Action class are going to reveal Durham Academy’s carbon footprint and set our sights on reducing it. This is the …
Oct 25
When the students in last year’s Environmental Sustainability class made a pitch to the Administrative Team, they asked that DA make a public commitment to sustainability. The Innovation Journey Grant is enabling us to move toward such a commitment for both operations and curriculum. In the meantime, however, the Sustainability Leadership Team took up the …
Aug 31
Each year, Durham Academy kicks off our return to school with discussions of summer reading. Most folks think that summer reading remains a student experience, working through an assigned text to be ready to discuss it in first week English classes, but faculty and staff do summer reading, too! Usually we pick a focus for …
Aug 06
SustainABLE DA, fueld by an Innovation Journey grant, launches August 9-10 with forty-five teachers, administrators, staff members, Parents Council representatives, and Upper School student leaders working together in Horton Hall to create a shared vision. The effort is being led by Jaimie Cloud, who has been fostering Education for Sustainability (EfS) in public and private …
Oct 07
During our August back-to-school meeting for faculty, I challenged my colleagues (and myself!) to create environments and experiences that are more: humane sustainable, and open to the genius of our students I won’t dwell on the humane part here, but I do hope we are doing all we can to overcome the dehumanizing brutality of …
Sep 24
Since the dawn of time, the world has used and reused and reused and reused all of its resources from water, to nutrients, to air, and anything else you can name. The Law of Conservation of Mass still holds true in everything that we do today. Sustainability isn’t stopping some intergalactic cloud from exerting demonic …
Aug 11
The recent string of extreme weather events got me thinking about home. I mean “home” as in the Greek oikos (like the yogurt), which is the root of “ecology“: the study of our home. Today we share our home with 7.7 billion people. We tend to focus on troubles and conflicts, but the dominant story …
