Lower Your Electric Bill
In hot areas, if you have west-facing windows use window tints, blinds, deciduous trees or trellises to help keep out heat from the summer sun. In general, you will lower your summer air-conditioning bill by planting trees and bushes along the west side of your home.
Schools Go Green
Dragonflies buzz around your head as you descend into the wetland behind Radcliffe Creek School. Started in 2007, the wetland project has been part of the impetus behind Radcliffe’s designation as a green school. What was initially a grassy ditch behind the school has been transformed, with help from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, into a thriving wetland buzzing with wildlife and native species of plants. Runoff from the school and nearby road is directed down a concrete sluice into the wetland, where it is filtered by the healthy growth of plants before trickling out to neighboring Radcliffe Creek. The project not only directs water away from making a muddy mess of the nearby playground, but also serves to improve the quality of the water before it hits the headlands of Radcliffe Creek, which eventually runs back out to the Chester River.
Radcliffe Creek is a private school located in Chestertown. Under its designation as a green school, students also learn about the ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay, raise native grasses and terrapins in their classrooms, learn how to recycle, and help one another remember to “go green” with painted light switches reading, “please turn me off!”
Click on photos to enlarge.
Boxes attract nesting wood ducks, which students observe and study.
Water can come down the sloped hill into the wetland.
A garter snake hides in the grasses.
A bulletin board inside the school reminds everyone to Think Green.
Students painted the drainage in the parking lot to warn against putting chemicals into the Bay.
A preying mantis perches on a stem.
The wetland provides habitat for an array of wildlife, including frogs, turtles, foxes, and deer.
The Maryland Green School banner.
