West Springfield

West Springfield

Teacher Natalie Donze wrote that the school yearly “Design a Green West Side” project was revamped to include field trips. In each of the science classes, students broke up into six groups: energy, transportation, waste, food, water, and civil engineering. The groups began by researching current West Springfield components within these six topics as well as green technologies and green cities for inspiration and information. The field trips brought hands-on experience. Depending on their topic students went to Quabbin Reservoir, the Deerfield Dam, Bondi’s island, WIN incinerator, Berkshire East’s wind turbine, and many more! It appeared from our turn out of families that the addition of the field trips brought more interest and connection to home. 

West Springfield is integrating its Cooler Communities work into their “Design a Greener Westside” middle school capstone project that will be shown to the public on June 2nd, 2023.

About seventy Middle schoolers first studied GIS maps of their city and its environmental features, then learned from a panel of UMass graduate students about water conservation and treatment, harnessing tidal energy for island communities, as well as energy generation, storage and supply to create net zero buildings. A UMass professor also agreed to present to all classrooms, before the students get to work on a project of their own choosing related to food sourcing, water sourcing and management, civic engineering, energy efficiency and supply, and transportation.

All their projects will be displayed to parents on June 2nd, where families will also be invited to pledge actions they can take to improve their homes and save money on energy bills.