Ewa Makai Middle School to host Sustainability Fair | Environment

The following information is provided by Ewa Makai Middle School:

Ewa Makai Middle School will host a FREE Sustainability Fair on Saturday, September 29, 2012, from 10:00am-1:00pm, at Ewa Makai Middle School in Ocean Pointe of the Ewa Community.  The address is 91-6291 Kapolei Parkway, Ewa Beach, 96706.  This date was chosen to honor the National Green Apple Day of Service, where many other global activities will be hosted simultaneously.  Please visit mygreenapple.org for more details.

The fair will showcase numerous vendors providing information on energy and water efficiency, renewable energy, organic gardening, and waste management.  In addition, the fair will educate the students, faculty, and the general public on the benefits of “going green”, along with offering options for more sustainable choices such as using renewable resources, composting and recycling.  

Sustainability is a value that Ewa Makai Middle School knows fondly.  Ewa Makai Middle School received the Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the construction of their “green building” designs.  This “Green” school offers natural daylight from solar tubes, along with light shelves and skylights, which allow more light into the classroom.  The school is also equipped with a displacement ventilation system for the air conditioning system.  Amazingly enough, Ewa Makai Middle School has a storm water retention system that retains 100% of the run-off rain, which in turn, irrigates the grass and plants on campus.  What do the array of values produce?  Less electricity and a lower operational cost!

Ewa Makai is not only celebrating the Gold LEED certification, they also earned the National Green Ribbon Award.  Ask any student on campus and they will inform you about Recycle Thursday.  Every Thursday, each classroom rotates the campus recycling by collecting and sorting the recyclables into blue bins.  The custodians in return use their own vehicles to visit the recycling center three times a month. The Ewa Makai Middle School Gardening Club meets every Wednesday to take care of their on-site garden.  Twice last year, these members produced seedlings that were distributed to the community.  Vermicomposting bins are also located on campus.  The worms in the bins are fed scrap vegetables from the cafeteria and this turns into vermicast used to fertilize the Ewa Makai Middle School garden.  Aquaponics, a sustainable food production system, was also installed.  This system allows the school to grow beds of various vegetables that are nourished with the fish and water system.  

The Sustainability Fair is open to the public.

For more information on Ewa Makai Middle School’s Sustainability Fair, interested volunteers or for vendor interest, please contact: Allison Arcio, PCNC Facilitator Ewa Makai Middle School, 808-687-9479 or Allison.arcio@ewamakai.org.