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Forging a Sustainable Future

Educating for Sustainability

 

Forging a more sustainable future is core to Hewitt’s mission. Through coursework, student-led initiatives, and school-wide programming, Hewitt students come to understand their relationships and responsibilities to the environment, to one another, and to themselves. Service is a core component of Hewitt’s sustainability programming, and we encourage all members of our community to consider what the planet gives to us and how we can give back to the planet. 

 

Our K-12 Approach to Sustainability Education

At Hewitt, sustainability education focuses on six core competencies:

  • Sense of Place: I can appreciate and recognize my interdependent relationship with my school, home, and community, and I am a responsible steward of these places. 
  • Environmental Literacy: I am aware of environmental challenges such as pollution, global climate change, and biodiversity loss, and am committed to making a positive impact on the environment. 
  • Systems Thinking: I can identify, describe, and analyze real-world challenges from multiple perspectives and make decisions in the design, implementation, and assessment of comprehensive solutions.
  • Responsible Local and Global Citizenship: I continuously develop and cultivate a sense of civic identity and local/global responsibility.
  • Sustainable Economics: I can understand and evaluate the relationship between the environment and the economy, including the need for economic growth strategies that protect natural resources for future generations. 
  • Ability to Take Action: I can plan and take action against environmental injustice to create change in my community and forge an equitable, sustainable, and joyous future. 

Sustainability in Action

A wide shot of the Hewitt gym filled with students in hairnets, packing meal kits

At our annual Day of Service, K-12 students, families, faculty, and staff come together for hands-on projects that positively impact our local and global communities, such as packing meals with Rise Against Hunger

Four students stand around a blue cafeteria table making sandwiches.

K-12 students learn about sustainable support for our local community through service projects including making sandwiches for guests at the All Souls Soup Kitchen and hosting a winter coat drive for New York Cares

Six first graders sit in a row in our roof top garden. There are trees and green plants behind them. They are looking at a male teacher wearing a blue plaid shirt.

First graders visit Hewitt’s rooftop garden to learn about local plants and pollinators and explore sustainable features like solar panels and a rain barrel

A student holds an oyster and leans over a rusted metal oyster cage. Next to her is a bucket of murky water.

Second graders study the Lenape and their relationship to oyster populations to understand the role oysters have played in the cultural and ecological history of our island

Two students, one in a pink shirt and the other in a white shirt, lean over a small fishtank. The tank has a bright blue lid and is filled with green plants. One student lifts an oyster from the tank.

Middle schoolers build their environmental literacy through exploration of the biodiversity, species relationships, and water quality within our local parks and waterways

Students lean over either side of a white folding table on the sidewalk covered in green plants

Middle schoolers plan, organize, and host an annual Sustainability Spring Market where community members can purchase vegetables, herbs, and flowers grown by Hewitt students

A group of students and two teachers wearing a variety of different colors stand on green grass holding a large wooden oar. Behind them is blue sky and calm water.

High schoolers in Hewitt's Leadership for Sustainability course visit the Catskill Mountains to explore New York City's interdependent relationship with the Catskill watershed

Two students stand in the rooftop garden next two a wooden sign that says %22The Hewitt School Roof Garden.%22 One wears an orange shirt and glasses, the other has blonde hair and a navy Yale sweatshirt.

In Uncovering Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Culture, high schoolers study the physics and chemistry of global warming and complete action research projects. For example, Caroline Baillie ’22 and Natalia Macia ’22 designed and built out Hewitt's rooftop garden as a way to reduce our carbon footprint 

A blonde student in a blue t-shirt stands in the rooftop garden, surrounded by raised wooden garden beds and power tools

The student-led rooftop garden project was highly interdisciplinary in nature, involving engineering and design, climate science, agriculture, and construction

A group of students sit around a table. In the background is a large flat screen TV that says, %22The New York Climate Exchange%22

During a visit to The New York Climate Exchange research facility, upper schoolers learn from professionals working in the field of sustainability

Three students stand in Central Park. One is holding a white trash bag, and one is using a grabber stick to deposit trash in the bag.

At our annual Day of Service, Hewitt's K-12 community comes together to clean up Central Park

Two students stand in front of The Hewitt School. They are on either side of a rolling cart stacked with wrapped bread and foil containers filled with food.

Each week, students work with Rescuing Leftover Cuisine to donate uneaten food from the Hewitt dining room to our local community

A group of students stand in a row in front of a large banner that says %22Urban Farm.%22 Behind them are green trees and a cloudy blue sky.

Students learn about food access and agriculture at GrowNYC's teach­ing gar­den on Governors Island

Two students stand in shallow water wearing waders and holding long poles with nets. Behind them are tall trees starting to lose their fall foliage.

In middle and upper school, students travel to the Catskill Mountains for experiential learning at The Ashokan Center

Service Learning

Whether collecting coats for New Yorkers in need, cleaning up Central Park, or volunteering their time to create dental hygiene kits for local health clinics, Hewitt students are “thinkers, learners, and doers” who affect change in their communities. Our partner organizations include:

  • All Souls Soup Kitchen
  • AmeriCares
  • Central Park Conservancy
  • Daniel's Music Foundation
  • Grassroots Grocery
  • The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society 
  • Meals on Wheels
  • The New York Common Pantry
  • New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
  • Operation Smile
  • Project Cicero
  • Rescuing Leftover Cuisine
  • Riley's Way Foundation
  • Siena House