Clean Energy Week 2021

September is the month of Zero Emissions Week, and more locally, Climate Week NYC!

Sustainability is a core value of the Princeton-Blairstown Center. From water turbine installation in the 1970s to produce power from the water flowing over the Bass Lake Dam, to the (now defunct) earth oven originally constructed near the Center’s garden site, to the solar panels on Egner Lodge, the Center has a track record of employing sustainability technology, and using it to both lower the Campus’s carbon footprint and explore science and technology with students.

This year, a number of these clean energy initiatives were included in the Center’s revised Environmental Education curriculum. To further encourage familiarity and impromptu education about the clean energy initiatives at the site, a set of five interpretive signs were designed and placed around Campus to highlight the infrastructure, the science concepts behind the technology, and the benefits each initiative brings to the Center. The signage was installed by the Facilities team, and is referenced by facilitators and staff as they move around property with program participants, Board members, and funders.

As with the efforts of the Program team to use the technology for teaching, one of the most exciting features of the Center’s clean energy technology is seeing it in action. When a local group brought a women’s retreat to campus, a participant used the new EV charging station to recharge their vehicle while they attended workshops. The solar panels on Egner Lodge have a feature that allows anyone with an internet connection to check their estimated output and carbon reduction. And the Center’s garden is a delicious example of sustainable practices for caloric energy, taking in food waste from the dining hall, turning it into nutrient-rich soil via composting, and using inputs of time, sun, and water to turn it into fresh produce to be served to students and staff – “clean” energy for minds and bodies.

PBC Reflects As Earth Day Turns 50!

“The environment is where we all meet; where all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share.” —Lady Bird Johnson 

In the 50 years since the first Earth Day was held in 1970, much in our world has changed. Yet, we still haven’t figured out how to replace clean water, clean air, and clean soil as foundations of healthy communities. Since our planet’s health is directly connected to the health of all living things, Princeton-Blairstown Center has long been committed to sharing care, education, and stewardship for our shared home. On this Earth Day – which is taking place as a natural phenomenon upends modern life as we know it – we chose to focus on the ways PBC continues to strive for positive planetary impacts. Here is a sampling of our current sustainability initiatives in our ongoing efforts to be better neighbors to all fellow Earthlings. 

Sustainable Agriculture/Garden Programming 
-Ron Franco, Sr. Program Manager  
In celebration of Earth Day 2020, I wanted to take a meandering stroll down a path of gratitude!  

Throughout my four-year tenure at the Princeton-Blairstown Center (PBC), I have seen our lovely garden grow from just a mere plot producing some veggies to a fully interactive “classroom!” Over the past several seasons, PBC Staff including Chef Bob, devoted Program Managers, and enthusiastic Facilitators have transformed a simple plot of land into an environmental hub of curiosity and learning!   

As a Program team, we have devoted time and energy to creating thoughtful and engaging garden activities and initiatives for our participants. During Summer Bridge 2019, the garden was quite lively, filled with nature knowledge shared through captivating STEM and Literacy lessons facilitated by our talented summer staff.  

roN fRANCO WORKS WITH a leader-in-training IN THE pbc gARDEN IN SUMMER 2018.

Students are encouraged to explore the natural environment of the garden through activities like Mystery of the Food Cycle, which investigates the path our food takes to get from farm to plate, or The Superhero Veg Head Symposium, which entices youth to use their imaginations, have fun, and build team while creating a Vegetable Super Hero!    

Last season, the PBC garden produced more than 375 pounds of nutritious, naturally-grown fruits and veggies that were harvested and brought to share in Egner Lodge Dining Hall. Students were able to eat the food they harvested, and it was a pleasure to provide a Garden-to-Participant-Plate experience to our students and staff. As a bonus, scraps from the dining hall are also composted. The compost is then used to enrich our garden soil, which helps to create as closed-loop a system as possible on our Campus. 

Currently, we have 100 spring transplants in the ground including broccoli, kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, cauliflower, and cabbage. We also recently donated 55 pounds of kitchen scraps (that otherwise would have gone directly to a landfill) to a local homesteader to feed his family chickens!  

This Earth Day, I am infinitely grateful for the opportunity to work with new and fellow staff, as well as new and returning students, to help foster a brave generation of Earth Stewards and Shepherds. 

Environmental Education 
Newly revised for 2020, PBC is excited to offer five curriculum-aligned programs for students featuring inquiry-based, hands-on science learning. Each program combines outdoor exploration with STEM- and SEL-reinforcing activities to help students engage more deeply with both science and the scientific method.

Three months of intensive work by our Program staff created a comprehensive curriculum guide for our facilitators, offering multiple learning extensions for older or younger students, indoor and outdoor expansion activities, as well as a meticulous list of applicable NY and NJ Science Standards to help teachers identify which programs will best suit their students’ learning journeys.

All program topics were selected with a sharp focus on the experiential, hands-on learning that PBC can provide. We are looking forward to sharing our Forest Ecology – Plants, Forest Ecology – Animals, Stream Science, Sustainable Living: Gardens and Soil, and Sustainable Living: Energy programs with students as soon as our Blairstown Campus is reopened! 

Renewable Energy 

WATER FLOWS OVER THE BASS lAKE DAM at pbc.

Solar: PBC’s solar panels were installed in 2007, and in 13 years have produced more than 100,500 kilowatt hours of energy and helped us avoid over 70,000 kilograms of CO2 emissions! There is even a real-time monitoring page that allows visitors to check in on the latest energy-generation statistics, and chart how productive the panels are on any given day.

Geothermal: The newest addition to PBC’s suite of sustainable energy initiatives, 4,900 linear feet of antifreeze-filled tubing was sunk to the bottom of Bass Lake during renovations to Danielson Lodge in 2019. Stored at depths below 10 feet, the liquid inside the tubing maintains a constant 50-degree, year-round temperature, which is then circulated to hyper-efficiently heat or cool the building. The most economical of all geothermal system designs, this setup burns zero fossil fuels for heat, and releases no pollutants!

Hydroelectricity: In 1984, with the help of the Princeton University alum Walt Hallagan ’79 and his dedicated group of hydro helpers, the Center added a hydropower generation system at the base of the Bass Lake Dam that generated between three and four kilowatts of power daily under optimal conditions. Recent multi-year reconstruction efforts on the dam necessitated changes to the design of the system and turbine. In 2020, PBC hopes to return the hydro generator to operational status once water flow patterns over the dam are fully restored.  

Virtual/Distance-Learning Resources 

At this unprecedented moment, with our Earth experiencing an extended pause from the action-packed hustle and bustle of modern human life, PBC is offering a wide range of virtual programming and online content to help you connect with nature and celebrate our shared planet. Join us on our Facebook page on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 3:30 pm to catch our latest virtual learning videos or Facebook Live features, which will continue to be offered as long as possible during our Covid-19 Campus closure. Our entire Program staff are working and learning together (while social distancing, no less!) to create these informative, fun, and engaging environmental education and social emotional learning lessons. We hope you will join us for the journey!

Looking Backward, Looking Forward

January Blog: Looking Back, Looking Forward    

We have only just closed the chapter on 2019, and it feels as though 2020 is already picking up speed. The first few weeks of a new year are a time for both reflection and anticipation as we look at how much progress we have made as an organization in the past year, and how we might move from plans to action to accomplish the many goals identified for PBC in the coming year.

In 2019, we experienced several wonderful highlights. Professional achievement included earning an Association of Experiential Education accreditation for the first time, and re-accreditation by the American Camp Association. We also added three new Trustees to our Board who bring diverse strengths, talents, experience, and many other positive attributes to our organization.

This past summer, the rubber really hit the road as 450 students joined us over six action-packed weeks for our award-winning Summer Bridge Program. This six-week-long span included new literacy and STEM lessons based on summer learning loss prevention, in addition to outdoor and environmental education, and good old-fashioned outdoor fun. The participating students’ visits were facilitated through PBC’s new and ongoing partnerships with 13 wonderful community organizations that operate in Trenton, Camden, and Newark, NJ, the majority of whom plan to be back for Summer Bridge in 2020.

Working in the garden with the 2019 LIT cohort.

Concurrently, we were also working diligently to increase our sustainability practices and reduce our overall resource use and impact on our environment. To that end, a geothermal heating and cooling installation was completed as part of the Danielson Lodge renovation (more on that in a moment!); our composting program diverted 200+ pounds of food waste from our dining facility; more than 375 pounds of food were grown in the PBC garden and served in Egner Lodge; and our sustainability committee worked all year to identify and act on additional opportunities to increase sustainable behavior.

Construction continues on the Bass Lake Dam.

In facilities management, in addition to all of the regular maintenance and upkeep that a 264-acre wooded property with nearly 8,000 visitors a year and dozens of historic structures entails, our Facilities team installed a new storage shed for the PBC garden, and oversaw three major capital improvement projects: the repaving of our main driveway, the  extensive renovation of Danielson Lodge, and the ongoing reconstruction of the Bass Lake Dam. Jody and his team had quite a year!

While these are reason to celebrate as we enter the 112th year of PBC, it seems of equal import to think of the goals ahead. For 2020, we are looking to meet the following milestones:

A sneak preview of the Danielson Lodge renovations.

• Completion of the three-year Bass Lake Dam renovation;

• Completion of the Danielson Lodge renovation;

• Implementation of a new three-year Strategic Plan;

• A strong sixth year of our Summer Bridge Program, engaging both new and existing partner organizations;

• Expanded public programming, such as the Homeschool/Afterschool Adventure series;

• Executing two successful fundraising events to offset the costs of our free and reduced-price programs;

• Continuing work in all departments that positions PBC’s facilities and programs as paragon examples of outdoor, experiential, and environmental education. 

That’s our short list! What are you or your organization’s 2020 goals?