Sustainability

The Portal promotes environmental literacy by building educator awareness of community-based partners and their products and services and fostering increased student enrichment and engagement.

The goals of the Portal are to increase access to environmental community-based partners and to be a reliable central repository for districts, schools, and teachers, identifying programs that align with their local needs and meet educational standards.

The California Youth Climate Policy (CYCP) Leadership Program empowers ninth- to twelfth-grade students to take climate action into their own hands.

Students participate in a summer retreat (July) and monthly workshops (August - December) that focus on foundational knowledge and skill-building activities related to environmental and climate action. Students then apply their knowledge and skills to leading a campaign that passes climate policies (or builds on existing policies) in their school or district. Throughout the program, participants receive mentoring from adult coaches and support in developing and implementing a personal leadership plan. Students who complete all program requirements are eligible to receive a $500 stipend upon completion of the program. 

The Youth Climate Ambassador (YCA) Leadership Program brings 9-12th grade students from across San Mateo County together to take climate action into their own hands. Through the program, students develop projects designed to drive change within San Mateo County and gain a diverse set of skills related to sustainability and climate action. This program includes a mixture of learning opportunities and experiences.

The Teachers' Corner is a space for educators to find resources and lessons when teaching their students about sustainability and environmental literacy. 

+ Grants & Funding

+ Field Trips and Community Partners

+ Solutionary Teaching and Learning involves the process of students analyzing problems, identifying the unsustainable systems that perpetuate them, and developing solutions that do the most good and least harm for all.

Elementary (K - 5):
Project Learning Tree; Teaching Materials
Foss Environmental Literacy Curriculum Connections 

WebQuests:
Energy WebQuest
Land-Based Ecosystems WebQuests
Waste WebQuests
Water WebQuests

Intermediate (6 - 8):
Outdoor Ed Solutionary Project-Based Learning 

WebQuests:
Energy WebQuest
Food WebQuest
Land-Based Ecosystems WebQuests
Transportation WebQuests
Waste WebQuests
Water WebQuests

High school (9 - 12):

WebQuests:
|Energy WebQuest
Food WebQuest
Land-Based Ecosystems WebQuests
Transportation WebQuests
Waste WebQuests
Water WebQuests

The district-wide Sustainability Committee has representation from CUSD students, teachers, administrators, staff, board members, and community-based partners. This committee meets once every two months to plan, implement, and support sustainability initiatives that take place across facilities and operations, curriculum and instruction, community, and culture. To contact the Sustainability Committee, please reach out to Joseph Centoni by email. 

To better support the understanding and management of the ecological footprint of CUSD’s facilities and operations, CUSD worked with the San Mateo County Office of Education to develop a Campus Sustainability Dashboard that provides data on utilities such as energy, water, and waste. Thank you to Peninsula Clean Energy for sponsoring this dashboard project and helping CUSD to achieve its environmental literacy and sustainability goals.

Explore the Cabrillo Campus Sustainability Dashboard.

In partnership with Flows to Bay, CUSD is moving forward with efforts to install water capture, stormwater pollution prevention, and reuse on every campus. Rain barrels have already been installed at Farallone View Elementary, El Granada Elementary, and Half Moon Bay High School. 

District administrators, teachers, and the Half Moon Bay High School Environmental Club collaborated to roll out a TriBin waste sorting system. This project was built on the school’s efforts to recycle in classrooms and is being used as a model for the other schools in the district. TriBins are now installed at Cunha Intermediate, Farallone View, El Granda, and Hatch Elementary, and every school site complies with California law to service green waste pickups. Additionally, water bottle refill stations have been installed on multiple campuses and have contributed to the reduction of single-use plastics across the district. 

Watch these student-made videos to learn about how to sort waste:

District leadership expanded upon its partnership with the HEAL Project to ensure equitable access to sustainable agriculture and health education across all elementary schools. The HEAL Project will also host the Intensive Garden Program, which includes 26 weeks of hands-on garden and nutrition lessons in garden spaces for all 2nd and 3rd-graders in CUSD. 

Rain barrel in theHatch Elementary School garden:

CUSD works with Safe Routes to School to encourage students to walk, roll, bike, and carpool to school. CUSD currently has about 30% of its students utilizing SRTS transportation.

CUSD is also applying for state and federal grants to transition the current diesel fleet to an EV school bus fleet. Additionally, CUSD is expanding access to EV Charging Stations to promote the transition to clean energy.

The Coastside Land Trust collaborates with CUSD students to promote environmental literacy and stewardship of local ecological resources. 

Kings Mountain Elementary 

• All-Electric Campus
• Recycling bins in classrooms and offices
• The School garden has been a place to learn about food and the natural world, as well as on-site composting

Hatch Elementary

• Lunchtime TriBin arrangement providing students with recycling, compost, and landfill options.
• Hatch hosts Oceans Week every year. Students are immersed for two weeks studying the nature of the oceans, and they participate in an assembly, book readings, art, and presentations about oceans.

El Granada Elementary

• Lunchtime TriBin arrangement providing students with recycling, compost, and landfill options.
• Fifth graders participate in environmentally-focused field trips, including Sea Odyssey out of Santa Cruz, where students learn about navigation, microbiology, and ecology, and Skyline Ridge/Daniel’s Nature Reserve, where students learn about the local watershed, local flora and fauna, and local ecosystems.

Farallone View Elementary 

• Students participate in and promote various events sponsored by the Safe Routes to School (SRTS), such as International Walk & Roll to School Day, Ruby Bridges Walk to School Day, and more.
• Farallone View became an Ocean Guardian School for participating in various projects to help protect our local watershed, such as beach cleanups and the use of reusable products. 

Cunha Intermediate School

• Creation of an Agriculture Science elective for 6th-grade students and an outdoor classroom space
• Creation of the Little Cunha Farm
• On-site solar energy installations 

Half Moon Bay High School

• Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science course offering
• Environmental Club to focus on sustainability efforts
• On-site solar energy installations 

CUSD is proud to have been formally designated a California Green Ribbon School District. After years of site-level and district action to operate in a more environmentally sustainable manner, CUSD has been given a Silver Level recognition, joining a select group of other California districts that have been similarly acknowledged by this state-wide recognition.