In her three decades as an educator, Hayes Elementary art teacher Christine Lakatos never considered herself an environmentalist. Yet Lakatos and her students at the Westland school for years created art using egg cartons, paper towel tubes and other household items that otherwise get tossed.

Under Lakatos’ leadership, Hayes Elementary, part of Livonia Public Schools, achieved Michigan Green School status in 2016. She helped launch the Hayes Green Team to complete tasks such as waste reduction and recycling to maintain the state-level certification.

As the years passed, the projects became more involved, time-intensive and complex.

“It really just grew from there,” Lakatos recalled. “Once you start, it’s just kind of hard to stop. I became more and more passionate along the way, and thought it was really important to promote this environmental awareness at a young age.”

Eight years later, Hayes Elementary’s efforts, led by Lakatos as Green Team leader, have grabbed the national spotlight: Earlier this year, the school was named a 2024 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School. Hayes Elementary was among 41 schools nationwide chosen for the recognition.

Achieving Green Ribbon status is no small feat: Lakatos and her team had to complete a nearly 20-page application outlining the school’s efforts to reduce environmental impact, improve health and wellness, and provide effective sustainability education to students.

The application goes through a lengthy review process involving the Michigan Department of Education, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education.

Unlike Michigan Green Schools, the Green Ribbon designation is a one-time recognition that is not recertified.

Team formation

The Hayes Green Team started with just five student members. Today, the team involves every Hayes student and staff member. Early projects included a letter writing campaign urging district officials to discontinue Styrofoam lunch trays. 

The district agreed to replace them with compostable alternatives district-wide.

Most recently, the Green Team conducted a “waste audit” of cafeteria trash at the school. They learned a large portion of the waste was uneaten food discarded by students. In response, the students launched “Waste Free Wednesdays” to promote waste-free lunches and snacks.

As part of the project, the school provides a Share Table for students to place their uneaten food items. The Share Table, under staff supervision, redistributes uneaten food among students.

“It really does teach them responsibility and helps them develop their leadership skills,” Lakatos said. “They are just super excited to do all these things.”

In November, Leanne Weber, a science education consultant for the Michigan Department of Education, visited the Hayes cafeteria to see the program in action. There, she witnessed a model of efficiency borne in the collaboration between Hayes teachers and students.

“It was really interesting,” Weber recalled. “They even had a special signal to talk to the leaders. They knew right away if someone put up a hand with a fist that they needed a Green Team leader to come assist them.”

“I think one of the things that helped Hayes stand out when I looked at their application was that even though there is a teacher champion leading the work, the students on the Green Team have really taken ownership of the work,” she added.

A key consideration of Green Ribbon applicants is the ability to apply the work to student success in the classroom. While student achievement can be tied to numerous factors, it’s worth noting that Hayes Elementary – at 46% free and reduced lunch – outpaced statewide averages in 2024 M-STEP third and fourth grade English and math.

In the 2024 M-STEP, Hayes third graders scored 54.3% and 52.8% advanced or proficient in English and math, respectively. The school’s fourth graders scored 57.8% and 57.1% advanced or proficient in English and math, respectively. The scores easily surpassed the statewide average M-STEP results of 39.6% and 43.4% advanced or proficient in English and math, respectively, for third graders, and 43.3% and 39.1% advanced or proficient in English and math, respectively, for fourth graders.

“Something different is happening at Hayes, and one of those things is green and sustainability work,” Weber said.

‘Art-ivist’ voices

Lakatos encourages her students to be “art-ivists,” or using their art to make their voices heard. In one case, students used their artwork to voice their concerns about sea turtles consuming discarded plastic, and our country’s large carbon footprint.

The students created a sea turtle sculpture made of discarded plastic, and a large cardboard sculpture of a tennis shoe to signify our country’s large carbon footprint.

The Green Team goes the extra mile to ensure used classroom materials don’t go to waste. Used crayons are melted down and repurposed into new, ergonomic-shaped crayons for district students with special needs.

The district’s students with special needs helped empty recycling bins each week as part of an inclusive, district-wide effort.

The Westland community also plays an active role in the work, including partnerships with local civic organizations and businesses. Westland voters passed a bond that replaced traditional lighting with LED lighting, enhanced air quality with upgraded HVAC systems and replaced the school’s roof.

“This was truly a district and community effort,” Lakatos said.

‘We rock at this’

Green Team work at Hayes often takes students outside the classroom. The students collaborated with the 3 B’s Native Plant Garden, located at a park nearby the school, to create educational signs identifying various birds and butterflies alongside their host plants.

Students, having researched an Indiana company that creates benches out of plastic bottle caps, led an effort to collect, sort and weigh plastic bottle caps. The students collected more than 300 pounds of plastic bottle caps for the bench, which is now available to visitors.

The students have also taken an active role in an effort to conserve honeybees and other pollinators. To date, this has included the symbolic adoption of the honeybee and Monarch butterfly through the World Wildlife Fund and installation of a native pollinator garden.

The pollinator garden will be supported by mentors from a local Wild Ones chapter, General Motors, and a Master Gardener for funding, planning, and maintenance.

Matthew Rodgers, a Hayes Elementary fourth grader, is a student leader for the pollinator garden project.

“It makes me excited,” Matthew said. “There’s a lot of trash on the ground and the air can get polluted, but with all the flowers and plants I think it will make the air better for the world.”

The Hayes Green Team isn’t resting on its laurels: The team is researching the feasibility of a composting program as part of its ongoing efforts to reduce waste and promote environmental sustainability.

The students will sell the resulting compost at cost and invest the money back into the program.

“We kind of rock at this,” Lakatos said. “Our students are proving that small actions add up to big changes. There’s always more to do, but we’re excited to keep making a difference together.”

MEA committed to green schools

MEA is working collaboratively with Climate Jobs International and other labor unions to develop a roadmap for achieving zero emissions in Michigan schools. This initiative aims to identify effective solutions while ensuring that all work is performed by union labor.

“We are committed to having our schools be part of a healthy environment for the students we serve and the broader community,” said MEA Vice President Brett Smith, who is MEA’s liaison to the group. “As educators and union members, we know the value of working together to solve issues and we’re committed to doing that with our zero emissions goal, which is vital to our world’s future.”

Is your school engaging in any green school activities, like solar power installations, carbon reduction strategies, electric vehicle adoption, or energy-efficient building technologies? Let us know so we can use your stories to inform this crucial work and provide case studies to inspire further action across the state.

Email us at publicaffairs@mea.org or call 517-337-5508.