Emily Hays Photos
Senior Camp Wender weeds while junior Ahniya Holder waters.
Senior Johanyx Rodriguez: This color is making me happy.
High School in the Community (HSC) seniors returned to their school building after a year of remote school determined to leave a legacy.
For Camp Wender, that meant revitalizing an old school garden. For Johanyx Rodriguez, it meant creating a coral-colored senior lounge.
“I was tired of being on the computer. This color is making me happy now,” Rodriguez said, gesturing to the wet paint around her.
The two initiatives are group projects in Ben Scudder’s Current Topics in Environmental Studies class.
Environmental Studies Teacher Ben Scudder carries his laptop, so remote students can talk with him.
Scudder moved to New Haven during the Covid-19 pandemic from New York City. The pandemic accelerated a move he was already considering. The big city was a bit much for someone from a small town in Alaska.
He joined High School in the Community (HSC) as a social and environmental studies teacher in the fall of 2020. He taught his students remotely until April 5, when New Haven public high schoolers got their first chance to learn in-person in over a year. The pandemic has been challenging for many HSC students, who have worried about family health concerns, time management and isolation.
Scudder asked his students what would make their last few months in school meaningful.
“They don’t want to leave without making their marks. They’ve been out of school for so long,” Scudder said.
The seniors and juniors in the environmental studies class decided to improve the school environment and brainstormed a list of ways to do that. They divided up into groups to update photographs hung around the school, plant the garden, create the senior lounge and more.
While not all of the projects seem like environmental studies, each idea does incorporate some element of climate research. For example, the senior lounge group decided not to use spray paint to avoid the carbon footprint of aerosol cans.
The projects also contribute to HSC’s goal of developing young leaders. Students had to manage each initiative on their own. For example, students raised $400 online to purchase supplies for the senior lounge and bought all the paint themselves.
The trickiest part was navigating red tape from the school district. Senior Johanyx Rodriguez, de facto project leader, spent countless lunches discussing what was possible with the head custodian.
Rodriguez came up with the idea for the senior lounge as a pandemic innovation all want to keep. To maintain social distancing, seniors eat lunch in a classroom instead of the cafeteria.
“I sit in here for lunch. It’s kind of sad. All the seniors agreed that we want a lounge feeling here, not a room that is an extension of the rest of the school,” Rodriguez said.
That theme made choosing a color for the walls easy. All group members immediately gravitated towards “opal fire.” The warm, pinkish color offered a cheerful break from the school colors in the rest of the building. They plan to leave one wall white and stamp it with seniors’ handprints.
Meghan Heier, 16.
Juniors in the project group provided input on what they want when they inherit the room in a few months. Junior Meghan Heier envisions fairy lights and bean bag chairs.
“School lighting doesn’t feel natural,” Heier explained.
By the time Heier inherits the lounge, Rodriguez will be on her way to the University of Rhode Island to study molecular biology or environmental studies.
As opal fire spread over the future senior lounge walls, Easter Bonnets popped up in the school parking lot.
The purple and white flowers are the next generation of a garden that turned wild a few years back. Senior Camp Wender explained that the garden once fed a class tortoise. Over the past few years though, the wood around the garden started to rot and weeds took over.
Wender shows HSC paraprofessional David Cohen which plants are weeds.
Wender proposed replanting one section of the garden. He bought perennials from a local greenhouse, despite the extra cost. The group analyzed the nutrients in the dirt. They decided to sprinkle clover seeds between the rows of flowers to replenish nitrogen in the soil.
Ahniya Holder, 17.
As in the senior lounge group, juniors are preparing to take on the gardening legacy. Junior Ahniya Holder has found a love for plants and plans to establish an in-school gardening club (students get training and class time to organize these clubs).
Holder transferred from Wilbur Cross High School to HSC. She has found her confidence and a more fluid gender identity at the smaller school.
“I’m going to miss these plants over the summer,” Holder said. “I can’t wait to see them grow.”
When Holder takes over maintenance of the garden, Wender will be an ocean away at Aberystwyth University in Wales, where he plans to study plants.
Previous coverage of changes in public school classrooms in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic year:
What a wonderful gift this project is that the seniors are leaving for next year's senior class. It's so nice to read about young people doing cooperative and positive and constructive activities to promote social emotional health and healing while learning at the same time. Congratulations on making it through probably one of the most difficult senior years in modern history. May you change the world for the better with the skills you developed overcoming the challenges of this past year.