RH Sustainable Green School

MAEOE Re-Certifies ROCKY HILL MIDDLE SCHOOL as Maryland SUSTAINABLE Green School

The Maryland Association of Environmental and Outdoor Education (MAEOE) is pleased to announce that Rocky Hill Middle School has been certified as a Maryland Sustainable Green School. Over the years, our school has demonstrated and documented a continuous effort to integrate sustainable best management practices; environmental education curriculum;  professional development opportunities; and community engagement into our daily operations. This certification signifies that our school has made a commitment to developing stewards of the earth and reducing the environmental impact of our school.

The Maryland Green Schools Program (MDGS), an award winning program founded in 1999, was designed to foster a student- led integrated approach to authentic learning that incorporates local environmental issue investigation and teacher professional development with environmental best management practices and community stewardship.  MDGS plays a key role in helping schools meet the Maryland State Department of Education’s environmental literacy standards established through the Governor’s Partnership for Children in Nature. The program is a method of improving environmental literacy for students and a tool for catalyzing change within the community as envisioned in Maryland Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights. “Building a framework today for sustainable environmental structures at school, home and in the community, that is what the Maryland Green Schools program brings to the children of Maryland”, says Laura Johnson Collard, MAEOE Executive Director.  The outdoor settings are used to develop an integrated context for learning from elementary school through high school. The children have an impact on their school, homes and their communities. The Maryland Green Schools program plays an important role in fulfilling the state’s commitment to ensure our young people become environmentally literate by the time they graduate.”

  • Rocky Hill Cares About Our Impact!   Four  new water fountains have been installed that allow members to refill water bottles!!  This exciting new feature in our school promotes a “No bottled water” concept as each fountain calculates the number of plastic bottles spared in its use.  We are also building our capacity to collect, measure and compost food waste from daily lunches.

  • Rocky Hill Models Sustainability! We have designed and constructed a school flower and vegetable garden to control runoff; to attract diverse wildlife, to model sustainable gardening; to encourage outreach and inreach in our community; and ultimately to use as an outdoor classroom 

  • Rocky Hill Unites in Achievement!  We were chosen as one of the top five schools recycling practices and our SERT Team has achieved both first and second place in the “Lead by Example” program.

  • Rocky Hill Promotes Empowerment!  Throughout the year, all members of our community are encouraged to pledge of a month a small change in their habits in caring for the planet (No Straw November, Strive for Five October).  These events lead up to Earth Week which is a culminating series of daily foci on ways to live sustainably.  This school wide event leads students  observe Earth Day and bring awareness to the cause of Going Green

  • Rocky Hill Cleans Up!!  Student Service Learning  hours are earned as our sixth grade students maintain our adopted road of Little Seneca Parkway.  Throughout the year, classes regularly tour the campus along the adjacent road to pick up litter.  Students learn of the slope of the land and the travel of garbage that ends up in waterways and the Chesapeake Bay.