A display of posters and designs for trash can covers to cap the workshop. Photos by Ron Kaplan
January 03, 2008
Despite the near daily warnings of melting polar ice caps, drought, and depletion of natural resources, Bill Landau remains upbeat. “It doesn’t necessarily all have to be under the umbrella of gloom and doom. There can be opportunities for creativity in seeking solutions,” said the science chair at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School.
Landau spoke with NJ Jewish News shortly before 150 middle school students from Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy — on the same Livingston campus as the high school — gathered in the school’s beit midrash for the beginning of Go Green: The Debate Has Ended, a series of three mini-workshops held Dec. 26-28.
After Landau’s introductory remarks, the group broke into smaller sections, each under the leadership of one of five high school students who are members of Enviro-Chug — the Hebrew word means “club” — an extracurricular program he created.
“They’re going to be discussing what they have passion and strong feelings about, and they will ask them if we can make a difference and get that ball rolling,” said Landau. The workshops included a competition for best poster, trash can decorative cover, and skit to see how the middle school students had absorbed the information. The activities were designed to help instill a more lasting impression and allow the kids “to have some fun with it,” Landau said.
Rachel Hausdorff, a senior and member of the Enviro-Chug, was concerned in particular about the effects of global warming “on our generation and the generations after.” She said the school didn’t have any programs that dealt with the issue before Landau established the club, and she was excited about the chance to work with the younger students “because they’re going to be in our high school soon, so they’ll learn about and take action on how to reduce our carbon footprint.”
Student Adam Ramos said that prior to joining Landau’s group he had “no inclination to do something so proactive. But now I’m hooked.” Thanks to Enviro-Chug, the senior has a newfound appreciation for renewable energy sources. “I originally believed [they] weren’t cost-efficient and didn’t produce much energy, but then I read more and realized: Why aren’t we doing this?” he said, expressing his now keen interest in exploring such alternate energy sources as wind, solar, and geothermal power.
“The high schoolers are very savvy, to my pleasure and surprise,” said Landau. “Whenever they’re not certain, they want to jump out and do research to make sure they’re getting the full and best picture.”
Appropriate topic
Bill Landau, left, confers with Adam Ramos, a member of the Enviro-Chug program, prior to the Go Green workshop at the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston.
Landau said it was entirely appropriate for Jewish schools to examine environmental issues. “It does impact us all, we need to take an active role in it. The interesting thing for a group like us in a place like this is that [Jews] are naturally activists.” Jews have learned from bitter experience not to leave fate to the hands of others, he said.
A lot of the students were “non-believers” in need of “converting,” said Landau. “They need to make discoveries to a large extent on their own. The job of education is to point them in the direction, not to give them a point of view.” The workshops “speak more to thinking and acting than they do to pure science.”
The questions the students encounter are, said Landau, “What are the implications of me in my neighborhood having a fuel-efficient vehicle? On a social level, who are we in the world? Are we waiting for the government to take charge, to act, to create” the means for preserving the world environment?
In the workshops, the young people were faced with the question, “With the best of our skills and understanding, can we start to improve our lot?” and were guided to the answer that there are things they can take action on, “among them climate change or clear-cutting and having good oxygen-producing tall plants. These are [among the] things that we should act on.”
In a Dec. 27 telephone interview, Landau said the Kushner schools were taking the first small steps “in heading toward being green and sustainable as an institution.”
Some areas of the Livingston campus are already equipped with motion detectors to turn off lights, but Landau hopes the workshops will give students “new sets of consciousness” when it comes to other aspects of conservation, such as turning off water taps during labs. A study was also being planned to look into more efficient recycling policies.
Landau — an education veteran of 20 years — is a “freshman” himself, serving in his first year at Kushner.
“I still think there’s spring in my step and a little bit of creativity afoot,” he said of the workshop he initiated. “So I’m pleased with it.”