Joya Elmore - Teaching Students with Environment Based Learning, Hydroponics and Honey

[00:00:00] Adam: Hello. Welcome to another episode of Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire.

[00:00:21] Adam: I'm so glad to be here alongside Dominique, the sustainability expert. We bring you guests who see the potential for impact in their job or community and have done something about it.

[00:00:29] Dominique: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for Green Champions to share their stories and plant some new ideas.

[00:00:39] Adam: Today, Dominique and I are joined by Joya Elmore, the Director of environment-based learning at Wellington. It's a school that spans from preschool to Grade 12, and she has gone in and created some really wonderful initiatives with the students. So Joya, welcome back on the podcast.

[00:00:54] Joya: Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.

[00:00:56] Adam: Last time on the podcast we talked about your journey of kind of how you found environment-based learning and just kind of a high level overview of what you're doing at Wellington.

But for listeners tuning in this time, can you just share a little bit about what you're doing at Wellington now?

[00:01:11] Joya: Yeah, so I'm the director for environment-based learning. And I feel like one of the lucky few who gets to work with three year olds through 12th graders, which sometimes blows people's mind 'cause it is a juggle of different needs and learning abilities. But I work to connect students back to their food source, help them understand our food systems and how to nourish their bodies in ways that enable healthy growth and development and understand how to live sustainably in this world.

[00:01:39] Adam: Very cool. It sounds like a lot of different projects that you have. What are some of the projects that they do in your classes?

[00:01:45] Joya: Yeah, so I teach a kindergarten class called Growers, which is new this year, kind of piloting it to see how things go. It kind of encompasses a bunch of different things that I've done over the years and then putting it just in one grade level right now. But it's this idea of growing food, eating the food that we grow, and understanding how fruits and vegetables nourish our body. But then also understanding how to grow our body's mind and soul. So understanding how to live sustainability in the world, how to connect with the outdoors when we are feeling overwhelmed, and how to just kind of pause and look at what's happening outside right now. What season are we in, you know, for these little five and six year olds understanding that, has been a lot of fun. 

So I do that and then I teach a hydroponics and botany class. It's year long science class for our juniors and seniors. So we learn a lot about sustainability and food systems and healthy growing methods for our different plants. So, they're currently doing a project behind me where they are growing one type of plant in four different systems and learning which one it grows best in, right? This understanding that like plants are living things too. And even though they can't talk to us with words, they can talk to us with how they grow. And so learning how to identify nutrient deficiencies in plants, right? 

We all understand that there are some nutrient deficiencies that our doctors can identify on our own bodies just by looking at us, but understanding that plants show us the same type of thing. They're studying their plants and how they grow over time. And yeah, they had to hypothesize which system they would grow best in.

So there's three hydroponic systems and then traditional agriculture. So understanding that if traditional agriculture works so well, we probably would never have found hydroponics. But understanding how it helps plants grow faster.

[00:03:37] Adam: I like that. What level do students come in and like, where are they in their own understanding of their environment?

[00:03:43] Joya: Yeah, I think I bring back a lot of old science classes that they took either in elementary school or middle school, talking about photosynthesis even, right? This understanding of that, I try really hard to help them understand how we are a part of that nature, right? About as basic as, you know, what do we breathe in, right? And what do we breathe out? What does a tree breathe in? What does a tree breathe out? And understanding that there is this beautiful connection that we have with these plants. 

It seems kind of basic, but we dive deep into the anatomy of a plant and the cellular level of those plants and how different nutrients play a role in that plant's production and growth over time.

 I have one student who is growing watermelon and one of her plants just flowered and I could show her where the watermelon was starting to form. Like you can see the little ball behind the flower. She had no idea. She had no idea that a watermelon came from the flower. And so, you know, it's developing this base level knowledge across the board I think is pretty fun and exciting.

[00:04:47] Adam: It also seems very empowering. 

You've also been a big part of the Green Club helping them grow. What part of that is helping students learn more about the environment?

[00:04:56] Joya: Yeah. So I have been the faculty advisor for the Green Club for, I think this is, I'm going into my ninth year here. And it's been fun to see it kind of evolve over time. It also really depends on who the president is at the time, right? Because things change, as someone's passion help steer things. And it's a lot of student-driven work. I'm just there to help them either follow through or fill in the gaps or jump through the hoops to get something to happen. 

But our current president, she's been really great. She's been the president for the last two years and kind of really revived it because it was starting to die off a little bit. She wrote a proposal to get a grow table put up in the upper school commons so that they can grow their own stuff and they don't have to necessarily come to my room. I think that's a wonderful thing, right? So that students can interact with the plants whenever they want. 

We currently signed up for a youth eco summit that's gonna be happening next month. So I get to take these kids to their first conference, which I keep on thinking back to when I was their age and did I ever do anything like this? No, I didn't. And how cool it is that as they are getting ready to look at colleges or applying to colleges, they can add this kind of stuff to their resume. And so we're gonna go and connect with other schools who are also passionate about sustainability and living a green lifestyle, and learning from them and sharing what we are currently doing. 

These students helped us last year do a waste diagnostic study. So we started composting a couple years ago. But there's been all these questions about, you know, what can be recycled? What is trash? Do we really understand any of this? Is the recycling just ended up going in the trash at the end, right? Who knows, right? So I said, "Well, let's do this." And so our composting partner connected us with Dominique. And so we were able to do a waste diagnostic study. 

[00:06:38] Adam: What did that look like?

[00:06:40] Joya: It was amazing. I mean, these kids spent like three hours outside the back of the school sorting through the entire school's trash from the previous day. I mean, they found lots of stuff that was not very appetizing, but sorting out what is actual waste, what could be recycled, what could have been composted, talking about liquids, right? Like people throwing away a half empty bottle of whatever drink they have. And so really trying to develop this understanding of what do we do here at Wellington? Where are we in our waste reduction. And how can we do better? And that's always my guiding question. Like, what can we do better? 

And I don't pretend to have all the answers or know everything. One of my favorite parts of my job is I get to learn from the kids. We all come from different backgrounds and have different things to bring, and I show up to work every day because I can't wait to learn from them as well.

And so we were able to develop this Waste Diagnostic study and set new goals and hopefully move the needle further so that eventually we can become a zero waste school. And the Green Club is a huge part of that. So we are getting ready to do our our pumpkin collection, composting pumpkins after Halloween and Thanksgiving, because there's, I don't even know many tons go into the landfill every year. So we set up this thing so that our community, not just our students and our faculty and staff, but our community can participate. And as part of Wellington, we want those families to do this as well.

[00:08:06] Adam: That's cool. 

[00:08:07] Dominique: Yeah, and your students are incredible. I mean, sorting through waste for three hours to add some color to it, it was fun. We had music playing. They were joking the whole time, but like the truth of it is like they're the best ones to be giving recommendations. 

So there was so much value across the board. I think we got to teach them a bit during that experience, but frankly, like, just like you, we were also learning from them. I was like, "Why is this here?" Like, "Oh, you're seeing a lot of that, why?"

You interact with the school. So, I think that echoes a lot of what we talked about in our last episode of like this deep understanding, getting to the root cause. I think that was approached in the same way of like, "Let's get the folks who contribute to this community to identify what will work well." 

And I think, there was just so much excitement around what was a very, you know, yucky task. And I think that's like so much of your leadership and the way that you've carried that learning forward to start building out this plan for a zero waste school.

How do you personally, think about that balance between letting students lead initiatives to build leadership skills, to find what they're passionate about, push initiatives, and being the voice of advocacy for them with leadership?

[00:09:20] Joya: It is a hard job. It's a hard line to walk for sure. But I think that I believe in it. I believe in these kids. I believe that our generation knows that there's a lot of problems, right? Are we doing a lot about it? Can't say we are. but I know, I know that these kids are, because they already have a better understanding of it than I did at their age. 

And I think that knowledge is power. I think if we can bring up everybody's baseline knowledge, whatever issue it is, it doesn't matter. I think that if we can do that, we can make some real big changes in the world. And so that's why I'm passionate about educating and what I get to educate feels very special to me.

[00:10:00] Adam: I love that. And it just seems out of the ordinary to have a grand vision of turning your school into a zero waste place. place,

[00:10:06] Joya: Adam, I can tell you that when I was in high school, I did try to get my high school to compost. I failed. And so maybe this is like my second chance here is that, and so, yeah. I mean I've been passionate about this kind of stuff for a long time. You know, I grew up composting, but we composted and gave all of our scraps to the chickens 'cause I grew up on a farm.

So yeah, it's a second chance for me to see that some change happen. 

[00:10:31] Dominique: And just for like educational like effect, zero waste is not zero waste. You get to still send 10% of the landfill. But also the Wellington School is like pretty darn close. Like compost is usually that big, big hurdle. And Joya knows this, but just for even just sharing like further success that I can speak to, like the Wellington School really is like far and wide ahead of other schools we've worked with when it comes to waste diversion. 

But Joya, I'm wondering, like I have a good sense of how your waste diversion efforts compared to other schools, but you do projects like beekeeping, rain gardens, what you're doing with hydroponics, like there's so much interesting work that you're doing, but how does that learning compare to other schools that do have sustainability initiatives? Do you have a sense of how unique your school is?

[00:11:19] Joya: Yeah, I mean, I think that there are schools that are doing components of what we do. I think we are unique in the sense that we service three year olds through 12th graders, right? So you might see a lot of this type of stuff happen in maybe one division, right? Maybe a middle school or a high school or an elementary school, but not across the board. So there's not a lot of schools that have that opportunity to service all of those students and expose them to these type of initiatives, right?

I am not a beekeeper. I will say that first and foremost, but I do help with the Apiary Club. We have a teacher in our upper school who helps with the beekeeping. And so I help kind of drive the initiatives behind it while he, you know, helps harvest the honey. So I'm helping to make sure that we are planting pollinator gardens around our campus for the bees. You know, and educating the kids on, "Oh, our bees' hives are here. Well, why don't we just plant the flowers here?" Well, the bees need to travel to go get their pollen and their nectar, right? So understanding that we need to put them in different locations. And also how to minimize invasive species on our property, right? So we have been working for a couple years to rewild Wellington, and take away our invasive honeysuckle, and it's given us a lot of land back, which has been really special. And it's been a great way for the community to be involved. 

So we have family work days in the fall and the spring. And we could easily spray all of this with Roundup, right? And it would kill it all. But is that the solution? It's the easiest thing to do. But what about our watershed? What about the animals, the insects, the birds, and the people who rely on that watershed?

And so we have partnered with FLOW, Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed. So we are tree ambassadors for them. And so we are planting native trees in replacement of the honeysuckle to try to create an environment for our bees and our birds. We have a teacher in upper school who teaches birding, and so we are now an Audubon chapter. And so part of that is also adding bird feeders and improving our campus for our native bird species. 

 There's just a lot of autonomy that we have, that I think a lot of schools don't necessarily have. We write our own curriculum and we work really hard to create authentic, real world learning experiences for our students, no matter their age. And tying it all together into the community. I think as an educator, one of the things that I find really powerful is the fact that I try to bring in others to help teach whether it is a local community member or another student, because I think we all learn better when we can connect with others. And so, we've had that opportunity to make those possibilities happen here at Wellington, and I think that that's unique.

[00:14:09] Adam: Yeah, that seems very unique just being able to tap other community organizations and have them come in where they have the expertise or the knowledge, and have that experience of students seeing, "Hey, yeah, here's what's available in my community to help me understand problems that I might not have known much."

[00:14:25] Joya: Wellington offers these student engagement grants for faculty and staff. And so it's an internal grant and so it's all about elevating student engagement, right? 

And so, gosh, during lockdown in 2020, my colleague Pete Kaser and I wrote a student engagement grant to research mobile classrooms, just to research them. And at the time, our head of school found out that we were doing that and he had been in a business meeting about our school bus that no longer passed inspection to transport students. And it would cost more to fix it than it would to replace it. And so instead of saying, "Okay, get rid of the bus, he said, hang on, we might have a use for it. Right?" 

And so it's this idea that like, because we are such a tight knit community, we can work together to make things happen. And it opens a lot of doors. And so, we went from researching mobile classrooms to, we had a bus. Okay, so what do we do now? Well, I started knocking out bus seats and then it was, "Wow, why don't we try to make this into upper school classes?" And so we started teaching industrial design. I don't have a background in industrial design. But I have good friends at Ohio State in the design department who helped us figure out how to teach design thinking and how to teach prototyping. And then how to actually build out a bus. 

And with our development team that we have, we were able to apply for a grant through E. E. Ford. And I think it was the largest matching grant that we ever received at Wellington. And so to be a part of that was really cool. and we got to pick up that bus at the beginning of September and the bus is done. And we now have a mobile classroom and I can't wait to take it on field trips, extend our learning experience.

I think the way that you engage locally too, I think that's so interesting. I think it's like a learning nested in a learning. When it comes to sustainability, like that locality matters and you do that through choosing to partner with FLOW or thinking about Metro Parks or native plants, like all things you already know. But I think that is an extra special thing that is, to me, the real value of the programming you've created is it's so unique and it's specialized to where your students are standing. And I think that that's really hard to replicate, but it's doable in the sense of like encouraging other teachers potentially to find out who's around them, and what they're working on and how to engage.

[00:16:50] Dominique: But I kind of wanted to ask that so I think we might have listeners who are other educators, finding your story really interesting and wanting to, you know, be inspired. But I'm also imagining there's more so listeners that are parents, and they have little ones to think about educating or like tapping into their interests, especially in like this very digital age.

Do you have any advice for somebody who is seeking to maybe start having little wins around successful educational experiences related to the outdoors, or even just around topics like this?

[00:17:22] Joya: Well, parenting is hard. It's really hard. I think it's the hardest thing I've ever done. I have two young boys, and one of the best pieces of advice that I got was from friends in Alaska. My husband and I love the outdoors, which is no shock 'cause we both teach sustainability. He is at Ohio State and he teaches environmental history. And so I always joke, I get the kids before they go off to him. But one of the best pieces of advice we got was, don't change your lifestyle to suit you know, raising young kids or whatever. Make them a part of your world, 

I mean, we started backpacking with our oldest when he was eight, nine months old, right? We're backpacking with diapers, like all the whole shebang, right? And at the time we were using cloth diapers too. So it's like, it's just, it's a lot. But I think that it's really important that you don't lose sight of what your interests are, right? So if you are someone who does love to be outdoors, you can instill that in your kids. And I think that I learned that from my parents as well, right? They always had me outside. I mean, there would be days where I would be out in the woods for the entire day and I would come home when I got dark 'cause I knew it was dinner time. You know, I didn't have a watch, you know, we didn't have phones, none of this stuff. But I think that you can do it. You just do baby steps and realize that like, it's always just an adventure. 

And I think sometimes we, even when I was just talking about field trips, we just think about the end goal rather than the process. And I think that the process is so much more valuable and important than the end goal. As a recovering perfectionist, I really try to just be in the moment. I have a new phrase that a friend told me that I am, I keep on trying to catch myself is 'resting in the eternal now', right? Of there's nothing but now. And just being in that moment, and bringing your energy level to that moment, I think can be really helpful, especially when you have young kids.

I feel very fortunate to work at Wellington. Wellington to me is what education should be for every student. And it's hard 'cause I really do believe in public education and I wish that this could be what every kid experiences. And I feel very fortunate that I have my sons here as well. But I think that when you are considering what is important, consider the process, not the end goal because you don't know who your kids are gonna be. You can have hopes and dreams for them, but be present in the process and they will appreciate that from you.

[00:19:50] Dominique: I love that and I like the aspect of, you know, encouraging parents to just still be their whole selves, which I think is really hard to maintain doing. And then I can speak to that as like a daughter. Like I have learned so much from seeing my parents when they've leaned into their passions or the work they love to do, or weird little habits or hobbies they have. And that's when you learn the most. And also you're kind of cut from a similar cloth as those who you grow up around. So, you get to learn a lot from appreciating Like, "oh, I see how you're using your talent for this thing" and you might find yourself doing a similar thing.

[00:20:22] Joya: Yeah. Or even just the people that you surround yourself with, right? They're a reflection of you. Who you choose to spend time with. That's what I try to teach my kids all the time, is, you know, it's really hard to constantly be the person who's setting the example, right? You need to also feel inspired by others and that type of connection is so valuable.

I mean, my oldest friend I've known since I was one. Before we could, you know, really walk and talk. And I'm constantly inspired by him and what he does. And I think that trying to make sure that you are able to be present enough with yourself and your feelings and how it feels to be around people or be out in nature, right? There's so much research about time spent in nature and even just spending five minutes outside how that can help you reset. And so teaching that to the kids I think is really, really valuable.

[00:21:08] Adam: That ties into our earlier conversation when you were mentioning the importance of wellbeing and taking care of ourselves and how that's tied into just our own ability to help others or connect with others or do work for the environment.

[00:21:20] Joya: Yeah, especially as parents of young children, if you aren't able to do the self-care that you need, you know, from basic stuff of getting enough sleep or showering or do something that like feeds your soul. It's really hard to put your best foot forward and be able to regulate yourself to be the person you wanna be for your kids.

I like that. Now, it seems to be kind of a theme for this podcast of it's not just you on your own, but how do you connect with those around you to get the support that you need in order to learn and grow and actually find the solutions that are gonna be more, more healing and more healthy.

Yeah, I think that the pandemic really made us all feel isolated, right? We were able to connect via the internet and whatnot. And then it supposedly kind of ended, or we were supposed to go back to whatever normalcy there was before, but you can't go backwards, right? So what does the future look like? And so really grappling with this idea that I think we all still kind of feel alone, right? Because we haven't really processed anything that we've been through and we don't have the skills or the time to connect. And so really trying to prioritize that and teach students the importance of that in the long run so that they aren't struggling and can't show it. So I'll say like our mission is to help students find their purpose and realize their potential for tomorrow's world. So I think giving them the toolkit to do that is really important. 

I wrote another student engagement grant for this year with two of my colleagues. And instead of focusing on students, we focused on the faculty. because we expect teachers to teach mindfulness. But you can't really teach something if you don't know how to do it yourself, which is this whole, you know, way of backwards by design and so giving teachers the time and priorities to make that possible.

So we had our first faculty retreat in September, and we took faculty members to Chillicothe, Ohio, and we spent a day in a geodesic dome, which full circle, right? And we learned about forest bathing. We did a sound bath, we did restorative yoga, we did some journaling and some meditation and just giving them a chance to kind of disconnect and really focus on themselves because, you know, I said it as parents, right? You can't be the best parent if you can't take care of yourself, but you also can't be the best teacher if you can't take care of yourself. And teachers were really put through the ringer with COVID. I mean, it was another front line, right? 

[00:23:48] Dominique: And there was no break. 

[00:23:49] Joya: No. 

[00:23:50] Dominique: And now you get reprieve. It was just, we're back to what was already pretty, pretty tiring. 

[00:23:55] Joya: Right. Or, you know, your summer is your reprieve. Well, a lot of teachers work a lot in the summer as well, right? The wellbeing component is a big part for me, and I think that when we can start to focus on our own wellbeing, we can focus on others' wellbeings, including the environment. And how do we take care of that?

[00:24:11] Adam: That definitely is a wonderful kind of full circle, starting with the geodesic domes. 

[00:24:16] Joya: Right? 

[00:24:16] Adam: Starting with the geodesic domes and finishing with them. But also bringing that back in of, "Hey, you can't teach anything that you don't understand." And so immersing yourself first, making that space for that.

[00:24:27] Joya: You can't you effectively teach, right?

[00:24:30] Dominique: True. You could try.

[00:24:32] Joya: You can try to teach, but it's a lot of talking at rather than helping students really develop an understanding of it.

[00:24:39] Adam: Well, we're so glad to have you on today. 

[00:24:41] Dominique: Was gonna say it's just been such a treat to hear like your approach to every project, to the way you think about like what's on the horizon and what you prioritize. I really think it is incredible how you balance empowering students and advocating for them. I really appreciate us getting the chance today to capture a bit of, of the way that you think, the things you've accomplished, and just giving us a chance to share Joya Elmore with our listeners. So thank you Joya, for doing this.

[00:25:11] Joya: Well, thank you. Thank you for the compliment.

[00:25:12] Adam: How can people find out about the Wellington School and the sustainability programming?

[00:25:17] Joya: You can follow us on Instagram. Our handle is The Wellington School and you can follow us by going to our website and checking out all the different things that we have going on.

And come visit us, come see what we're doing. I'm always open to visitors to connect with our community. And my email is elmore@wellington.org.

[00:25:36] Dominique: Thanks Joya.

[00:25:37] Adam: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against fight against climate change. 

[00:25:48] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach us at our website, the greenchampions.com Our music is by the Zane Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions.

We'll be digging into another sustainability success story in our next episode. ​