Stine Environmental Center

A project several years in the making, the James M. Stine Environmental Center is an open space for teachers and students to take learning outside. The center includes a spectacular stone-tiered classroom, walking trails, a counsel ring, a challenge course with low-ropes to promote team building, and an artist reflection area.

Teachers and students alike find creative ways to use the center — from staging a production of Midsummer Night's Dream and hosting our Middle School Coffeehouses to team building on the ropes course and creating artistic representations of how local foliage decomposes over time. We use the center to educate our students explicitly about conservation and sustainability, but also to cultivate an appreciation for our home along the Severn River.

To become a true steward of the environment, you have to make real connections that foster compassion and inspire action. At our Teel Campus back door, the James M. Stine Environmental Center is a place to examine, study and enjoy our natural landscape while learning about the larger impact we have on the Earth.

The Stine Environmental Center is just one piece of the larger framework of environmental responsibility at Severn. We are a certified Green School by the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education and encourage everyone in our community, especially our students, to take ownership over sustainability and environmental programs in and outside the classroom. By creating a culture of appreciation and awareness, we ensure that each future class of students has a strong foundation of sustainability practices upon which to build.

Student-led initiatives include:

• Junior class reusable water bottle sale
• Middle School student council initiative to reduce paper cup waste
• 6th grade erosion & invasive species control project
• 8th grade civic responsibility speeches focused on relevant environmental issues
• 5th grade "Hour of Power" to develop environmental passion projects and promote schoolwide
• Student-designed recycling signs with clearly identifiable examples to follow
• Upper School Eco Club drive to encourage recycling by creating specialized bins for specific types of waste
• Upper and Lower School "bike to school" days
• Annual Earth Day events