That was one of the many real-life examples that Jonathan Dubinsky, Pesach Staldin and Elizabeth Cossin, educators from the Teva Learning Center - a Jewish environmental educational institute, according to tevalearningcenter.org - incorporated to teach middle school students at Pardes Jewish Day School on Dec. 16, and Jess Schwartz Jewish Community Day School on Dec. 17, about environmental sustainability and climate change.

 

The trio, in addition to Baruch Shwardon, who served as the volunteer traveling secretary, and Rachel Playe, the volunteer public relations manager and documentarian, recently took a month-long cross-country road trip on the Topsy Turvy Climate Change Bus, starting in New York just after Thanksgiving, and finishing at the 2009 Hazon Food Conference, held Dec. 24-27 in Pacific Grove, Calif., about 120 miles south of San Francisco.

 

The group headed south to Georgia before traversing west across the southern states.

 

The Topsy Turvy bus is two school buses stacked on top of each other, one upside-down and one right-side up; it is a fully functioning vehicle. Before Teva acquired it early in 2009, the bus had been used to make several political statements. It was originally commissioned by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream fame as a unique form of protest against the federal government's spending habits; Cohen wanted to see more money go to education and less to the military. He used the bus as a visual aid to show that the budget had literally "been turned on its head."

 

More recently, the bus was acquired by Daniel Simon and Casey Gustowarow to promote the White House Organic Farm Project, an effort to have organic foods grown on the White House grounds. The project was a success - there is now an organic garden on the White House lawn.

 

Alexandra Kuperman, assistant director at the Teva Learning Center, which is based in New York City, said that the organization started out using the bus to travel the Northeast, going as far as Cleveland, to teach about Birkat Hachamah, a holiday that takes place once every 28 years and celebrates the sun returning to its original spot in the sky; it occurred last April.

 

"We were like, 'This is a horribly inefficient bus,'" said Kuperman. "It remains inefficient. It's a very heavy bus. But we said, 'We're not going to do this if we're just going to be guzzling more fossil fuels that are nonrenewable.'"

 

As a result, Teva invested in equipment to convert used vegetable oil into clean-burning fuel that can run the bus's diesel engine. The group acquires waste oil for free from restaurants that otherwise throw it out.

 

Additionally, those using the bus place all of their biodegradeable waste - 100 percent of their trash - into a compost heap that is kept on the bus.

 

Playe, the documentarian, said the bus is a success because its funky design strikes people's interest and makes them more willing to learn about the environment.

 

"The bus is an attraction," she wrote in an e-mail. "It opens the door for people to see what we are about and to realize there are many ways to live your life. Folks are 'flipped upside-down' when they see our vehicle, and I think that keeps their minds open to hearing about climate change more than they would be under typical circumstances."

 

For the bus tour, Teva partnered with nonprofit Hazon, best known for its long-distance bicycling events and annual food conference, which "explores the intersection of Jewish life and contemporary food issues," according to hazon.org.

 

Both Pardes and Jess Schwartz heard about the Topsy Turvy tour through Hazon, said Rabbi Erica Burech, Pardes director of Jewish life, and Nammie Ichilov, head of the Jess Schwartz lower and middle school. The two schools are affiliated with Hazon through a community-supported agriculture program they each run with the help of the organization, which makes locally grown organic vegetables readily available to the community ("Jess Schwartz begins communitywide CSA," Jewish News, Sept. 18, 2009).

 

Although the bus only visited with middle school students during its stop in the Valley, Kuperman said the lessons are intended for anyone who will listen. "The target audience is the (entire) Jewish community," she said.

 

"We have pretty much the same message for all age groups, you just have to adjust your methods for different age groups," wrote Cossin, one of the educators, in an e-mail.

 

The educators used identical lesson plans at Pardes and Jess Schwartz. They began each day with a skit that included audience interaction, explaining why global warming is taking place.

 

Afterward, they split the students into three groups and set up three stations.

 

One station, run by Dubinsky, was a lesson on the inner workings of the Topsy Turvy bus. He explained how the engine ran on vegetable oil, and showed off the worms in the compost heap while talking about why it was important to "keep (waste) in the cycle."

 

"On our planet, there's no such thing as garbage," Dubinsky explained. "Garbage is fuel or food for someone else."

 

At another station, Staldin set up a relay race. The students were given cards with different environmental activities, then ran to the finish line and placed the cards in one of three categories: "This helps the environment," "this might help the environment," or "irrelevant." The students then discussed why they made their choices.

 

Lastly, Cossin had the children make solar ovens out of recycled pizza boxes.

 

When the activities were over, the educators gathered the children and asked them to make pledges about what they could do as individuals to help the environment. However, the students at both schools have taken the idea a step farther.

 

Burech said the Pardes middle school students have implemented "low trash Fridays," where the school will try to lower its lunchtime waste output. Additionally, she said, the student council has organized recycling bins for bottles, cans and other materials across campus; in the past, the school had recycled only paper.

 

Ichilov said that at Jess Schwartz, three seventh-graders have approached the student council about creating a student-run garden on campus.

 

"Education like this is not a one-time event," said Ichilov. "(It) needs to happen on an ongoing basis, and the students need to see that it's a commitment on the part of the people around them, whether it's the administration, the school, the teachers around them or whoever it is, that this is a legitimate way of life."

 

The Topsy Turvy bus is planning a trip back east, to begin in the next several weeks. 

 

Visit the blog at www.jclimatebus.wordpress.com. 

 

Visit the Jewish Climate Change Campaign at www.jewishclimatecampaign.org.

 

Article from Jewish News