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Laure Grove was eager to teach at Terra Centre Elementary in Burke, because the school was initially built to be environmentally efficient.

In an attempt to conserve energy, the school was constructed underground. When she arrived in 2018, there were a few garden beds outside, but Grove noticed they weren’t being utilized.

When students returned to the Fairfax County school campus after the peak of the pandemic, the garden beds needed to be cleaned up, Grove said. Many people helped lead that effort, and brainstormed what could be done inside the school building during the cleanup outside.

What started as a small project to get the gardens ready for use again evolved into a schoolwide approach to get students involved and excited about protecting the environment. The school has an “eco club,” emphasizes recycling and composting and has buy-in from parent volunteers and local businesses.

For leading that work, Grove has been nominated for a National Wildlife Federation award.

“What she is instilling in our kids, and actually even our staff, will continue to have an effect for years to come, and how they take care of our world and our environment, which, as we know, is so important right now,” Principal Rebecca Gidoni said.

Growing up in Virginia, Grove spent a lot of time working with animals and plants. Her mom worked for the National Recreation and Park Association, and her family spent a lot of time on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

At Terra Centre, students participate in several different waste reduction programs. The school collects plastic and helps prevent it from ending up in landfills. When they reach 1,000 pounds, it can get turned into a bench. Several such benches are available in the school’s outdoor learning spaces.

Every classroom, from kindergarten through sixth grade, has a Green Team representative. This year, the group voted to host a battery recycle center.

Preschoolers have their own vegetable garden and usually grow a pumpkin patch. On the hilly portion of the school’s outdoor area, there’s a pollinator garden. Separately, there are a series of 720-foot bed-edible gardens.

Last week, as part of a math unit, kindergartners made patterns with pansies in their garden bed. Fifth graders dug up potatoes that were planted last spring. As part of a social studies unit, it led to conversations about ancient civilizations.

“This little light bulb goes off,” Grove said. “They get to do something hands-on, and they remember it, is the most important thing, and they’re able to then also articulate it, because they can recall it better.”

To encourage spending time in the outdoor spaces, Grove helped launch a badge competition this year. A classroom gets a sticker for every 15 minutes spent outside learning.

In the first quarter of the school year, the classes totaled 1,400 minutes of outside learning time.

“They’re excited, and they’re guiding their own learning with enhanced concepts,” Grove said. “You get to do stuff hands-on. You get to take the stuff that might not be as thrilling in the classroom all the time and apply it in a more cool way.”

Each week, the school hosts “Don’t Be Wasteful Wednesdays,” encouraging students to discourage waste and promote composting.

Even parents are chipping in, Grove said. Some volunteer to help maintain the gardens. A group of dads spent a weekend putting together composting bins.

And sixth grader Laila Turpin recalled a recent project creating a habitat for native frogs.

“It’s more unique than other schools, because we get to be more involved with nature,” Turpin said.

The school has a fish tank in the middle of a hallway, next to a fixture of plants being grown.

“Everything from plastics to planting to composting, watershed, all of those real-world experiences are teaching our kids something that they could learn in a classroom, but not with the same meaning and intentionality as what we’re doing here,” Gidoni said.

Led by Grove’s efforts, the school earned a “Green Flag” designation from the National Wildlife Federation. The honor recognizes campuses that go above and beyond in teaching students about sustainability.

Grove, a pre-K special education teacher, called the recognition “a very big honor, because I’m just one teacher at an amazing school in Burke, Virginia. I’m sure there’s lots of other people out there doing amazing stuff too, but we have worked hard at our school, and the kids here — they’re awesome.”

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