Terrapalooza Shares Sustainability With the K-12 Community

During the third annual Terrapalooza, Upper School Librarian Nora Murphy made her way around the event with a tray of unusual appetizers: grasshoppers and crickets. The sustainability-focused event featured activities and booths celebrating Earth Day, and, armed with her tray of insect protein, Nora taught students about environmentally-friendly snacks that produce fewer greenhouse gases than beef or chicken.

Students delighted in the unusual food, with Fourth Grade Teacher Flo Siegel’s P ’36 class all trying a bite. “There was one student walking around bragging, ‘I ate 20 grasshoppers!’” said Nora. Even Head of School John Bracker bravely took part in the activity. 

Terrapalooza’s founding three years ago started with an inquiry from Upper School History Teacher Avi McClelland-Cohen. Her previous school had a climate conference, and she wanted to bring something similar to Poly. Upon returning from maternity leave in Fall 2022, she put her head together with Nora and pitched a book display in the library. Instead of a display, in just four weeks, they put together an entire day of programming centered on Earth Day, with participation from the Lower School and lectures during free periods by faculty like Upper School Science Teacher Rachel Dunham ’01 featuring her popular paleoclimatology talk.

“Terrapalooza is gaining momentum with every passing year, and with each year, younger students have gone to it one more time, building connections and excitement for the next event,” said Nora. 

This year's Terrapalooza on April 14 began with large groups of students from the Middle and Lower School arriving at South Campus for booths and activities, all moderated by Upper School students, faculty, and staff. They were given activity passports to document their stations with stamps. Some of the standout activities included tours of the recently restored Arden Lawn, with architect Michele Antenocruz leading a talk, and a booth led by Archives Intern Laila Jaffer ’15 featuring historic Poly documents on nature and environmentalism. Laila then invited students to write letters to the Class of 2050, sharing about their lives with future Panthers.

One of the most popular activities was Melissa P. ’26 sharing a climate-future fortune-telling game. She would deal cards with climate prompts and questions, have students propose solutions to the card, and then use a worksheet to draw or sketch that future. Melissa was also crucial to the behind-the-scenes planning of Terrapalooza, helping run booths and making the event happen. Ryan K. ’28 served as the liaison with the keynote speaker, and Emmett J. ’28 also served in the committee that met every rotation to support the event.

“I’m very passionate about the earth and how we’re interconnected with it,” said Melissa. “I think that just having the opportunity to explore that on a greater scale made me want to get involved. It was also a way to connect with the Lower and Middle School and build my Poly network.”

During the noon hour, the Upper School welcomed Miry’s List Founder Miry Whitehall to Garland Theater for a keynote presentation. Miry’s work centers around helping refugees resettle in the U.S., filling empty apartments with items of comfort and familiarity. She asked the audience, “How can we help the families resettling in our community?” Increasingly, these refugees are affected by climate change.

In the afternoon, Poly’s South Campus was filled with workshops, from tours of the gym’s rooftop solar panels, land and environmental art from the 60s and 70s, green investing, and so much more. One workshop featured both climate change and sweet treats. “Asia In Climate and Geopolitics,” led by Asian American Alliance (AAA) members Kara K. ’27, Kaitlyn C. ’27, and Anya P. ’26, discussed how Asian nations are taking the lead on climate action and also experiencing vulnerability to climate change. For some students, it was surprising to learn of the U.S. leaving the Paris Climate Agreement. The presentation also introduced the vibrant fruit punch hwachae, meaning “flower dish” in Korean.

“Students were excited to learn about non-U.S.centric geopolitics in relation to climate change, which was exciting,” said Kara. “I know that I've never had the opportunity to learn about Asian leadership regarding climate policies in class, so I was grateful to Terrapalooza for giving me a platform to share one of my personal interests and—what I think is—a really important topic.”

Leading up to Terrapalooza, PolyGlobal hosted a talk the night before with entrepreneur and engineer Aaron Fyke who spoke on climate change and the rapidly emerging sustainable responses that are constructively reshaping how we see, understand, think about, and live in our local to global worlds. Aaron shared how he promotes clean energy through climate-conscious companies. It was the perfect lead-up to the Earth Day event.

Looking ahead, the Terrapalooza organizers, including faculty and staff Nora Murphy, Avi McClelland-Cohen, Natalie Mattox, Stephanie Monteleone, and Laura Fleming, hope for total K-12 participation and to continue to show students that their projects and ideas are relevant. The hope is that students will aspire to present at Terrapalooza as an annual opportunity.

“I feel really proud of our team and what we accomplished,” said Natalie Mattox. “I’m grateful to the students on our committee who really threw their time and their energy into helping us ideate and get set up. I think it's a really beautiful moment of connection for all of us who get to put it together beyond just the impact of the festival itself.”