About
Environmental Sustainability
Green at RE
The mission of Sustainable Ransom Everglades is to advance environmental sustainability initiatives and eco-conscious practices on the Everglades and Ransom Campuses and throughout our community at large. Sustainable Ransom Everglades unites a broad range of constituents to set common goals and achieve common dreams: Students, faculty, staff and parents work together to cultivate environmental awareness and stewardship, promote sustainability, and advance environmental and climate justice.
We aim to be leaders in climate change education and youth climate action in our community and among independent schools nationwide.
We aim to be leaders in climate change education and youth climate action in our community and among independent schools nationwide.
News
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Zoo Miami Goodwill Ambassador launches Earth Month at RE
Ron Magill, a wildlife photographer and Goodwill Ambassador for Zoo Miami, helped Ransom Everglades launch its celebration of Earth Month by sharing the compelling story of K’wasi, the first male lion cub born at the zoo. Students at the April 2 assembly at the Lewis Family Auditorium oohed, ahhed and laughed along at K'wasi's tale, which was illustrated by Magill's extraordinary photography.Read More -
Students conduct research and explore in South Africa
Seventeen RE upper school students explored the history, reefs and wildlife of South Africa and conducted extensive scientific surveys in Somkhanda Game Reserve during a multi-faceted, three-and-a-half week visit centered on conservation and climate research in June and July.Read More -
Author headlines environmental sustainability speaker series
Author, journalist and activist Michael Grunwald P'26 '28 injected hope and calls to action into a frank and disturbing discussion about how the world's climate problem has shifted from fossil fuels to food production. The recent clean energy revolution has diminished the impact of fossil fuels, but "the race to feed the world is frying the world," Grunwald, the inaugural speaker in RE's Environmental Sustainability Speaker Series, said at the Posner Lecture Hall on April 18. "We are eating the earth."Read More -
Some 400 students' projects featured at RE Climate Symposium
The seventh annual Ransom Everglades Climate Symposium showcased the best thing going for our climate-in-crisis: smart, motivated, activated youth. Hundreds of Ransom Everglades middle schoolers and many upper schoolers displayed and discussed their solution-oriented projects during “a sustainable, eco-friendly celebration” – in the words of Director of Environmental Sustainability Kelly Jackson – April 26 at the Fernandez STEM Center.Read More -
Indigenous leaders urge students to take action to protect the Earth
Brazilian Indigenous leader, preservationist and activist Arassari Pataxó shared the traditions and travails of the Pataxó Indigenous tribe – one of 380 tribes in Brazil – on both RE campuses during Earth Week to inspire students to take action to protect the Amazon and the Earth. Wearing traditional dress and speaking in Portuguese through a translator during his April 18 visit, Pataxó explained that he spoke on behalf of his tribe's elders, who "are very worried about the destruction of the environment."Read More -
Composting tally: 10,700 lbs. in four months
Ransom Everglades composted 10,700 lbs. of food scraps in the first four months of the 2022-23 school year. Sage Dining Services staff members have administered the program, depositing fruit and vegetable waste into new pink collection bins on both campuses. Led by Director of Environmental Sustainability Kelly Jackson, the composting is part of RE's growing commitment to operating green campuses. Food that is composted does not end up in landfills, helping to reduce harmful methane emissions.Read More -
RE hosts central African mangrove experts
Kelly Jackson, Ransom Everglades’ Director of Environmental Sustainability and Will Charouhis '24, a climate activist and member of RE's Environmental Sustainability Committee, exchanged ideas and information with a cohort of mangrove experts from central Africa during winter break as part of a cooperative program on Mangrove Ecosystem Management and Environmental Protection.Read More -
RE Director of Environmental Sustainability attends climate summit
RE Director of Environmental Sustainability Kelly Jackson joined some 35,000 delegates from nearly 200 nations at the Nov. 6-20 United Nations World Climate Conference COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Jackson represented Ransom Everglades, the Miami Youth Climate Summit and We are Forces of Nature, and she took part in the push for meaningful climate action while also attending various educational training sessions expected to benefit her work with RE students.Read More -
Ten students recognized as sustainability scholars
Read MoreTen RE students personally visited Coconut Grove businesses and helped persuade them to adopt more sustainable practices as part of a local, student effort this past fall to dramatically reduce single-use plastics in the Grove. All earned Blue Grove Sustainability Consulting Scholar Certificates for their boots-on-the-ground work with the Miami-based Debris Free Oceans. -
Six sharks tagged on recent student expedition
Read MoreStudents in RE's Marine Field Research classes tagged and tested six sharks during a pair of research trips on Biscayne Bay in November. Under the direction of shark expert and RE faculty member Kristine Stump and scientists from the Field School, RE students assisted with full-scale scientific work-ups of each shark while also helping to place tags that would allow the creatures to be tracked.
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Environmental Care Is in our DNA
RE’s upper school campus is located on the very shore of Biscayne Bay.
This is no chance occurrence. Paul Ransom took care to situate it there. He wanted his students to have the bay as classroom and laboratory, and it has served those functions ever since.
In the early days of the 20th century, when the Ransom School was first established, Miami was more wilderness than metropolis. This created unusual opportunities to instruct students in everything from the natural sciences to boating, navigation and self-reliance.
Today, we have to travel a bit further afield for wilderness work, but we still do, starting with an Outward Bound expedition for all ninth graders. Paul Ransom’s early concern for nature has, over the years, become a culture of environmental stewardship shared by the entire RE community.
Social Media
Teams
List of 4 items.
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Green Team - Middle School Students
The middle school Green Team is open to 6th-, 7th- and 8th-grade students who have a passion for the environment, climate change, environmental justice, sustainability, and who want to help make our school more green. The Green Team works on a variety of projects including tower gardens, campus gardens, rain barrels, recycling/waste reduction, composting, climate action, eco-education, and much more. Join the Green Team to be an environmental steward for Ransom Everglades School! We need your help to promote environmental sustainability and to help plan events for the middle school community including coastal cleanups, Earth Week, and the annual RE Climate Symposium. -
Environmental Sustainability Council - Upper School Students
The Environmental Sustainability Council (ESC) is an organization for upper school students interested in activism and outreach within the general theme of environmental sustainability. The scope of projects and initiatives under the ESC is broadly inclusive, with the common theme of advancing the health, sustainability, and awareness of environmental issues on campus and beyond. The ESC's five Working Groups (WGs) reflect its thematic focus areas: Energy, Water, Waste, Land and Outreach. Each WG leads projects and initiatives centered on its particular topic. The Outreach WG works across all other WGs to provide materials and activities in support of various projects. In addition, the Outreach WG leads the development of annual Earth Week events and environmental art projects.
Environmental justice is an overarching theme that permeates each aspect of the ESC. For each project and initiative WGs create, outreach materials will include information on how that particular environmental issue affects minority communities and financially disadvantaged communities, and what actions can be taken from individual to international scales to mitigate such effects. -
Environmental Sustainability Task Force - Faculty and Staff
The Faculty/Staff Environmental Sustainability Task Force meets throughout the school year to collaborate across disciplines on eco-initiatives and course curriculum, particularly for the annual RE Climate Symposium. The faculty and staff also work together to support middle and upper school student initiatives. -
Environmental Sustainability Committee - Parents' Association (REPA)
The purpose of this committee is to support the environmental issues and initiatives of Ransom Everglades faculty and students created and implemented by the faculty and staff Sustainability Task Force, the middle school student Green Team, and the upper school student Environmental Sustainability Council. Through this parent volunteer committee, the members will seek to enable the efforts of the faculty and students through expertise, communications, resources, and helping hands so as to advance their environmental causes and efforts.
Areas of Support:- School environmental sustainability events
- Find or provide subject matter expertise to help coach or inform on an issue or initiative
- Create awareness and support within the parent community of the issues and initiatives at Ransom Everglades concerning the environment
- Research and provide resources to advance environmental causes
Initiatives
List of 5 items.
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Solar
In 2019, Ransom Everglades School took its first step towards renewable energy by installing a 5.2 kW 18-Panel Solar Grid-Tie System on the Hogan Building at the middle school. Later that year, with the completion of the middle school bus loop, additional solar panels were installed that power the gates and lights along Bayshore Drive.
In May 2022, a 305-panel solar array was installed on the top of the Henry H. Anderson, Jr. ’38 Gymnasium. The array is expected to annually generate a total of 157,000 kW, save more than $25,000 and offset a quarter million pounds of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of planting some 1,800 trees. -
Environmental Education
Connecting Ransom Everglades students to Biscayne Bay is at the heart of Paul Ransom’s mission. Throughout the year, faculty connect middle and upper school students with opportunities and local experts to learn about our local environment here in South Florida.
Learn how Marine Field Research students explore virtually
View a Marine Field Research course video.
Students attended an American Geophysical Union conference. -
RE Climate Symposium
The RE Climate Symposium started in 2016 at the middle school and has grown into an annual, school-wide, interdisciplinary, week-long event.
In its sixth year, in 2022, it featured middle and high school projects and a keynote address by world-renowned artist Xavier Cortada. Sixth-grade students presented science, social studies, and English projects focused on solutions to fight climate change. Seventh-grade students presented projects about human health and climate change. Upper school students presented sustainable business ideas, environmental art, and projects focused on how our local marine ecosystems are critical to combating the climate crisis. An eco-friendly dinner was served, accompanied by a sustainability fair. -
Environmental Stewardship & Advocacy
The middle school Green Team and upper school Environmental Sustainability Council students regularly take action to help our local environment.- RE Water Patrol with Miami Waterkeeper
- Dream in Green's Green Schools Challenge
- Mangrove cleanups January 2022 cleanup
- Composting on campus
- Alternative gardening (Tower Gardens)
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Campus, Community, & Citizen Science
Middle and upper school students have opportunities to participate in ongoing science research on our campus, within our community, and with citizen science programs with our community partners. Learn more:
Middle School Students Study Geology by Drilling
Day on the Bay with Shake-A-Leg
Middle School
2045 South Bayshore Drive, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 250 6850
Upper School
3575 Main Highway, Coconut Grove, FL 33133Phone: 305 460 8800
Founded in 1903, Ransom Everglades School is a coeducational, college preparatory day school for grades 6 - 12 located on two campuses in Coconut Grove, Florida. Ransom Everglades School produces graduates who "believe that they are in the world not so much for what they can get out of it as for what they can put into it." The school provides rigorous college preparation that promotes the student's sense of identity, community, personal integrity and values for a productive and satisfying life, and prepares the student to lead and to contribute to society.