In September 2020, students enrolled in Shaler Area High School’s new Sustainability course volunteered at an event to support the Girty’s Woods Conservation Project.
Students helped sell raffle tickets and spread awareness of the project to preserve Girty’s Woods, 155-acres of woodlands located in Reserve Township and adjacent to Shaler Township and the Borough of Millvale. The Girty’s Woods Conservation Project is an effort of the Allegheny Land Trust to purchase the property and create a permanent green space for passive recreation, rainwater absorption, and wildlife habitat.
Added to the course offerings this year, Sustainability is Shaler Area’s newest College in High School (CHS) course offered through the University of Pittsburgh. In the course, students explore energy use, consumer choices, food choices, personal action, waste disposal/recycling/composting, water use, and transportation and the impact of an individual’s active and passive decisions in each area. Throughout the year, students will complete a series of personal lab challenges that involve analyzing, changing, and reflecting about the way they eat, what they buy, how they get around, the energy they use, and the decisions that they make as they relate to sustainability and environmental best practices.
Shaler Area High School is one of two local high schools offering the yearlong CHS Sustainability course. More than 70 Shaler Area students in 10th- through 12th-grade are enrolled.