Samson Environmental Center

Darrow School’s facilities, which include 22 National Historic Landmark buildings, as well as newer, state-of-the-art buildings incorporating sustainable designs and features, provide opportunities to apply an environmentally conscious approach to our surroundings. The Living Machine and the Samson Environmental Center are the most visible embodiments of Darrow’s commitment to sustainability.

Using a natural ecosystem as a model, the Living Machine treats wastewater from school dorms and other campus buildings before returning the water to the Hudson River watershed. In this alternative system, nature’s “processors”—a diversity of microorganisms, snails, oxygen, fish, and basic plant life—are used to break down and digest organic pollutants. The water is treated through this simple technology which mimics nature’s water filtration and bacterial processing systems, rather than through the application of chemicals and other high-tech tools. For a portion of its energy sources, the Living Machine utilizes sunlight, electricity from solar photovoltaic panels, and gravity, all of which are renewable resources.

In addition to processing the School’s wastewater, the Living Machine provides unique hands-on learning opportunities to Darrow students and organizations from outside the School. Students routinely monitor levels of bacteria, phosphorous, nitrogen, and other biological and chemical levels. They examine plant life which grows in treatment tanks throughout the facility and study the concept of environmental sustainability.

Since its opening in 1998, the Samson Environmental Center has been visited by more than 500 guests a year wanting to learn more about environmentally-friendly solutions to wastewater treatment. Educational, civic, corporate, and environmental groups have explored the Center and have used it as a resource for their own investigations and studies. Displays throughout the Center place the School in the context of its immediate environment and history and of the surrounding watershed, serving to illustrate the global concept of environmental sustainability. Led by student tour guides, visitors learn how the Living Machine works and gain a broad perspective of sustainability in our world today.

You may schedule a tour of the Samson Environmental Center by calling or e-mailing  Craig Westcott, the Center's director, at 518-794-6011.

Click to learn more about Darrow's outreach programs.