Sayre School is committed to environmental education.

All three divisions - Upper, Middle, and Lower Schools -  participate in a variety of activities each year, including Bluegrass PRIDE’s WasteBusters program, sponsored by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.  Every year each division has met the "Elite WasteBusters" criteria, the program's highest level of recognition. The Lexington-Fayette Environmental Commission presented Sayre with the 2010 Environmental Award for our Sustainable School Program.  Recycling bins are present throughout campus with recycling of batteries, CDs, and glass available. 

Sayre students participate in The Kentucky Questing Program.

Upper School AP Biology students stream testing results.

Many environmental activities occur during the month of April, specifically during the week leading up to Earth Day.  These activities include Zero Trash Day, Zero Food Waste Day, and daily environmental trivia questions at all three divisions (with prizes for winners!).  Every member of the Sayre community participates to promote environmental responsibility campus wide.  The hard work of Bill Barnes, our Food Service Director, is vital as we measure the food waste each division produces during this week in an effort to encourage our children to avoid taking food they don't intend to eat.  Our cleaning service counts the number of  bags of trash each division produces during that week. 

This year we started construction on our second rain garden!  We ceremoniously broke ground the first week in April and have finish construction.  This project was funded in part by a city grant and the generous donation of service and design work of Joseph Hillenmeyer.  We celebrated Earth Week with a Sustainable Lawn Care workshop presented by Program Manager for Bluegrass PRIDE, joanna Isaacs.  She shared all the tricks to keeping a green yard without harming the waterways we all share.  We learned how to manage the water that travels through our yards, the appropriate times to use fertilizers and pesticides, and tips to planting native grasses.  We continued this theme during the week with a showing of "Dirt" (http://www.dirtthemovie.org/ ) on Earth Day, at the State Theater, to our Upper School students, faculty and the general public.  That evening the US Green Team went to see the film, "African Cats", a portion of ticket sales were donated to the AWF through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund to help preserve habitat for African cats, as well as other wildlife in the savanna.

Please see our previous Earth Week Activities page for more details.

Look at some of our past accomplishments...

Four students were nominated by the high school faculty because of demonstrated leadership and passion for sustainability to serve on the new Bluegrass Youth Sustainability Council: Annie Marcum, Hannah Turnbull, Chenault VanMeter, and Tadhg Young.  The goals of the Council are to protect the environment, preserve natural resources and encourage responsible spending of tax dollars.

Upper School Musical production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels! was a ticketless production as reservations are not being offered and the decision was made that it would just be a waste of paper to issue tickets!

Maddie Mitchell, a student in the Upper School, conducted a science fair experiment to improve the air quality outside the Lower School building. Please go to the following link to hear more about how her project can help improve the air quality for your children and our community. Science Fair Project to Reduce Idling.