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Sustainability Initiatives

Self-sufficiency and sustainability are part of our Shaker heritage, but Darrow’s modern era of sustainability efforts was ushered in by the opening of the Samson Environmental Center and the Living Machine in 1998. The following are our most recent sustainability initiatives.


January 2005
  • Bleached white paper napkins are eliminated from the dining hall, replaced with brown paper napkins that are compostable, reducing both landfill waste and costs.
  • A special dinner and program devoted to sustainability is held to highlight organic, local, handmade, and sustainably sourced products (see menu). A student-created program follows that explores potential energy initiatives on the Darrow campus.
  • In addition to energy conservation initiatives, SEC prefects take on sustainability education and dining hall initiatives.

May 2005
  • A dorm energy competition is held to raise awareness of electricity usage patterns on campus, and includes data collection and the presentation of “commercials,” created by the SEC prefects, during all-school meetings. The competition culminates with a sustainable-foods meal, reflections on the meaning of sustainability, and the awarding of the Darrow Green Cup to the top two dorms.
  • Algebra I students monitor waste in the dining hall by weighing the trash, then recording and tracking the data. The information is used to teach graphing and analysis, and the results are presented to the larger community.
  • Darrow’s sustainability efforts are featured in several presentations and publications. These include:
  • “Sustaining Common Grounds: The Necessity of Shared Work on Campus,” at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Annual Conference in Boston, presented by Craig Westcott and Josh Kleyman.
  • “Educate, Then Activate: Exploring Sustainability through Responsibility to Global Disaster,” at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) Annual Conference in Boston, presented by Josh Kleyman, Amy Beckhusen, and Seth O’Bryan.
  • “A Partnership of People, Program, and Place: Sustainability at Darrow School,” at New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) Sustainability Conference in Rye, New York, presented by Josh Kleyman and Craig Westcott
  • Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS) article on K-12 Environmental Education (Darrow School Environmental Science [9th grade] tree ID unit): Kleyman and Westcott

December 2006
  • SEC prefects Joe Moehrle ’07, Alex Armanino ’08, and Emily Cooper ’08, as well as faculty members Mitko Apostolov and SEC Director Craig Westcott, attend the first Green Cup Challenge Conference at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. The conference is a forum for discussion of metering energy consumption and integrating the GCC into course curriculum.
  • The Student Eco-Cloth Program begins in dorm bathrooms as a way to encourage students to use the personal towels provided instead of paper towels.
  • Soap dispensers throughout campus are changed from refillable liquid dispensers to those that hold recyclable plastic containers with a "Green Seal," environmentally approved cleansing foam that offers three times the washing capacity of liquid soap.
  • A Keurig coffee system is installed in the faculty kitchen in Wickersham. This reduces waste by making coffee by the cup, from fair-trade brands such as Green Mountain, Tully's, and Gloria Jean's.
  • For the third straight year, Darrow hosts the Hudson Valley River Watch Clean Water Congress. The event, which Darrow has participated in for six years, is attended by more than 100 students and faculty from eight different schools.

January-February 2007
  • A representative from New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG), Darrow’s electricity supplier, visits campus to offer a tutorial to Facilities Director Tom Seamon and SEC Director Craig Westcott on reading our many different electricity meters.
  • Darrow competes against 14 other independent schools in the first annual Green Cup Challenge. The Darrow SEC team planned a series of events for the competition period, to encourage students to conserve energy. Darrow placed third overall, reducing electricity use by 11 percent and electricity bills by several thousand dollars.
  • The Hands-to-Work Recycling Crew begins an initiative to eliminate batteries from the general waste stream. Dedicated battery buckets are placed in the Student Center and Wickersham Common Room.

October 2007
  • Darrow School is featured on the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s Green Buildings Tour, with SEC prefects greeting and offering tours for the visiting public.
  • An image of the SEC is chosen for both the cover and the month of September on the 2007 NYSERDA Power…Naturally calendar, and was also featured in an alternative-energy section of a textbook.

October 2008
  • Students dub 2008 “The Year of Living Sustainably.”
  • Composting efforts are ramped up on campus. Ten 5-gallon buckets are placed in the kitchen to collect food waste. Each Hands-to-Work session, the Tractor Crew takes the buckets to the main compost pile located in the southeast corner of campus. The buckets are rinsed, sterilized, and returned to the kitchen.
  • Eighteen ClearTainers, fitted with biodegradable bags, are placed in dorms, the dining room, and other strategic areas around center campus. These collect aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles, and compostable napkins. For paper and cardboard waste, 55-gallon bins are located nearby. The Hands-to-Work Recycling Crew collects and sorts the weekly deposits.
  • SEC Prefects Julia Emery ’09 and Eric Budge ’10, faculty member Joel Priest, and SEC Director Craig Westcott travel to the Omega Institute to participate the Water of Life Conference, featuring a keynote address by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a presentation by Dr. John Todd, inventor of Living Machine technology. The invitation to attend is an outgrowth of Darrow’s granting access to Omega to shoot a video of Darrow’s Living Machine to support fundraising efforts for their own eco machine.
  • Darrow participates in the Green Cup Challenge for the second year, in an ever-expanding field of more than 40 schools.
  • Director of Facilities Tom Seamon and SEC Director Craig Westcott are tasked by Head of School Nancy Wolf with developing additional strategies to reduce electricity consumption and other energy-use metrics.

February 2009
For the third consecutive year, Darrow successfully participates in the Green Cup Challenge, this time against 150 other schools nationwide. In support of the effort, ACE Energy donates the planting of 1,100 native pine, fir, and cedar trees (ten for each of the participating GCC schools) in the Plumas National Forest in California.

April 2009
The inaugural Darrow School Sustainability Symposium is held as a pre–Earth Day celebration. The event features 15 guest presenters, including Darrow alumni David Darling ’66, Mike Hardiman ’75, and Lily Spencer ’07; current faculty Rick Brown, Joel Priest, and Patrick Cooke; keynote speaker Sarah Gardner, associate director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College; Dicken Crane, owner/director of Holiday Brook Farm; and John Turrene and Alden Cadwell of Sustainable Food Systems. The day wraps with a viewing of eco-activist films by local American Indian filmmaker Fidel Moreno.

June 2009
SEC prefect Shawn Leary ’10 is named a U.S. Green Schools Fellow. The program, the product of a partnership between the Green Schools Alliance and the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center, brings together an elite group of 100 environmentally conscious student leaders to participate in the National Student Climate and Conservation Conference in West Virginia.

November–December 2009
  • SEC prefects Mariana Vinci Germar ’10, Tim O’Donoghue ’11, Shawn Leary ’10, and Elizabeth Lankford ’11, and SEC Director Craig Westcott attend the fourth annual Green Cup Challenge Conference (GCCC) at Choate Rosemary Hall School in Wallingford, CT. Shawn gives a presentation during the conference.
  • Under Darrow faculty member Brian Quarrier, the School participates in the international 350 parts per million “movement” (www.350.org), hosting several events designed to both raise awareness of environmental issues and actively promote reduction of the Darrow School carbon footprint.
  • Darrow hosts the “Do It in the Dark” dinner by candlelight, to raise awareness of energy-use issues, then divides the student body into four activity groups (glow-in-the-dark poster painting, flashlight tag, glow-in-the-dark frisbee, and flashlight hide-and-seek). Afterward, the community celebrates around a bonfire.
  • Darrow co-hosts, with Mountain Road School, an Empty Bowls hunger banquet. In the month leading up to the event, Darrow students and faculty collaborate with Mountain Road School students to make 250 one-of-a-kind ceramic bowls, and prep vegetables for the meal. Proceeds benefit Charlie’s Pantry in New Lebanon and OXFAM America.
  • Darrow takes part in a USDA water-supply study designed to detect the presence of pesticides occurring in rural potable water sources.

April 2010
  • The 2nd annual Darrow School Sustainability Symposium kicks off with keynote speaker and Director of the Global Living Project Jim Merkel (www.radicalsimplicity.org); Darrow alumni John Erb ’76, Mike Hardiman ’75, and Lily Spencer ’07; current parent Wendy Rowden P ’10; current faculty members Joel Priest, Patrick Cooke, Jim Bennett, and Liz Fougère; Jesse Robertson-Dubois of Holiday Brook Farm; Brian Bean and Luke Forster of SunDog Solar; and Amy Cotler, Director of Berkshire Grown and author of The Locavore Way.
  • Darrow School sends a strong team of scholars to the New York State Envirothon (www.nysenvirothon.net), a hands-on environmental education competition in which teams of high school students from 27 compete in a battery of tests and applied knowledge in the areas of surface and groundwater protection, soils and land, forestry, wildlife, and aquatic ecology The Darrow team is represented by SEC prefect Tim O’Donoghue ’11, Elizabeth Lankford ’11, Becky Ronn ’12, and Recycling prefect Eric Budge ’10.

May 2010
  • On May 4th, the New Lebanon Zoning Board approves Darrow’s application for a height variance, making possible the installation of four 2kW SWIFT wind turbines on the roof of the Science Building. These units, donated by Dick Barzin ’49, and their information kiosk allow for real-time comparison of electricity production and carbon-avoidance data with the building’s existing photovoltaic array, as well as additional electricity relief.
  • SEC prefect Tim O’Donoghue ’11 is selected as a U.S. Green Schools Fellow, and represents Darrow at the Second Annual Student Conservation Congress at the U.S. Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia.
  • Darrow focuses on food and sustainability, with major improvements made to the organic garden by the Hands-to-Work Gardening Crew. Additionally, the Construction Crew creates herb planter boxes for the Dairy Barn loading dock. These improvements enhance the amount of food produced on-site that can be used in the School’s dining room.
  • The first phase of the Center Family Barn Restoration project draws to a close, as the Hands-to-Work Barn Crew, under the supervision of faculty member Jim Bennett and Director of Facilities Tom Seamon, compete the closing and painting of the building envelope. Drainage work around the foundation also begins.
  • For the fourth consecutive year, Darrow successfully participates in the Green Cup Challenge.

October 2010
  • Darrow is selected for the eighth consecutive year as a stop on the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s Green Buildings Tour.
  • SEC Director Craig Westcott presents two sessions at the Inaugural National Greens Schools Conference in Minneapolis, MN, “Show Me the Money: The ROI of Sustainability Efforts,” and “Service in the Context of Community.”

November–December 2010
  • A pole-mounted photovoltaic panel and battery are installed on the south side of Darrow Road at the intersection with Route 20, with two high-output LED lamps illuminating the Darrow School sign.
  • Darrow participates in the Green Cup Challenge Conference, sending SEC Prefect Elizabeth Lankford ’11 and Sam Nissen ’12 to represent the School at the kickoff event at Deerfield Academy.
  • Darrow co-hosts, with Mountain Road School, the second Empty Bowls hunger banquet. In the month leading up to the event, Darrow students and faculty collaborate with Mountain Road School students to make more than 100 one-of-a-kind ceramic bowls, and prep vegetables for the meal. Proceeds benefit Charlie’s Pantry in New Lebanon and OXFAM America.
  • The fall trimester of Hands-to-Work is a huge success, with accomplishments such as the building of ten new picnic tables and the supports for a fence around the raised beds in the organic garden. The winter trimester moves the work inside the Science Building, focusing on creating an appealing approach to the rooftop turbine installations.