Good news for Chicago middle school and high school teachers who want to teach their students about the environment and earn a bit of extra cash: the city has extended its deadline for applications to its 2008-2009 Chicago Conservation Corps (C3) Student Club.
Teachers now have until Friday, Sept. 19, to apply for the C3 Student Club program.
As The US House of Representatives votes on No Child Left Inside this week, this is your last chance to let your legislator know you want MORE funding for training teachers in outdoor education, MORE funding to expand environmental education programs and MORE programs to ensure that US graduates are environmentally
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In my experience, one of the hardest places to green our family’s life is our children’s school. As a parent and a teacher at this school, I am constantly met with resistance when I suggest ways we can green our children’s education. The excuses from lack of money to health regulations never cease, but I never stop trying. Ironically, these excuses are actually reasons why schools should become more eco-friendly. Green schools reduce sick days for staff and students, as well as cost 2% less to run, according to the Organic Consumer’s Association. Here are five ideas to help you change your child’s school:
While the greening efforts of U.S. colleges and universities seem to capture the most media attention, elementary schools across the country are no slouches when it comes to eco-action.
Look at what’s happening at some of these schools:
Although school may be the farthest thing from your children’s mind this summer, your representatives in Congress are thinking about it. The truth is that many US schools are in dire need of repair, and most of them are very energy inefficient. My children’s school still has asbestos tiles in some rooms, the roof is poorly insulated, and the heaters/AC are power suckers. If the H.R. 3021: 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act passes, this may change.
The Green Schools Act passed the House of Representatives last month by a vote of 250 to 164 and is now in the Senate. If passed into law, this bill would provide funding to make school facilities safe, healthy, energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and technologically up-to-date. U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), a member of the Education and Labor Committee explained:
The condition of our nation’s school facilities can have an immense impact on the ability of our children to learn and the quality of education they receive. By improving our schools and making upgrades using green technology, this legislation will create new jobs and help improve student health, learning ability, and productivity.
I have learned from our readers that there are two sources for green motivation in families: the parents or the children. Eco moms and eco dads obviously pass on their green values to their children, but sometimes it is the children themselves that inspire a family to go green. I was one such child growing up that converted to vegetarianism (I did not get my family to do the same), and made my parents aware of environmental issues. My influence was not seen immediately, but I look at my dad’s avid recycling and my sister’s organic food choices and can’t help but think that my green values may have rubbed off on them. Now, there is a book to help children turn their parents green.
How to Turn Your Parents Green, by James Russell and illustrated by Oivind Hovland, is a humorous book for kids ages 8-80 (you are never too old to turn your parents green). This book helps alleviate eco-anxiety by empowering children. “The premise for the book is that grown-ups (the Groans) are responsible for causing global warming, but it’s you (the kids) who will have to deal with the consequences.” The tips in the book are what you would expect, such as eating organically, riding your bike, and turning off light bulbs; but the format is unique in suggesting how children can approach their parents. One suggestions is presenting your parents with a list of poisons in the household, such as cleaners, then giving them a month to switch to natural products. There’s even a section on how to turn your teachers green!
Last week, I talked about the Green California Schools Summit happening this week in Pasedena. This week, I interviewed one of the panelists who’ll be speaking. Mike Hall is the Chief Marketing Officer at Borrego Solar, a California-based solar integrator that works extensively on solar installations in schools.
ECP: Tell us about Borrego Solar and their work with schools going solar.
MH: Borrego Solar is a solar integrator, so we’re the last part of the machine, and what we do is provide turnkey solar electric solutions for our customers. We have two groups, one is called the commercial project group and they’re the ones that service the education industry and work with schools on developing solar projects. They also do commercial and industrial and government work, and then we have a division that does single-family homes. We’re very much focusing on trying to provide not just solar solutions for schools, but better solar solutions for schools. When we looked at the schools, the education industry, and school construction, we’ve been reading some studies that show that the single biggest contributor to new building construction is the construction and retrofitting of schools. If you look at the overall energy issues and the various contributors to carbon emissions, there are really two big sources. One of course is cars and transportation, which our company is not really taking on head on, the second is buildings, which we’re trying to tackle, and if you look at buildings, if you look at new construction, schools are the biggest contributor. So that’s a big reason why we’re focused on schools.
Secondary reasons are to kind of change things, the opportunity to teach students that there are alternatives to the existing fossil fuel-based energy sources. So we’re trying to work with schools. One of the things we’ve seen with schools is that there have been a fair amount, a very tiny percentage, but a fair amount of schools that have gone solar. A large amount of those schools have really not themselves been properly educated about solar and have not had enough support from their integrator to take that next step and not just treat it like an appliance on their roof that is hopefully saving them some money, but that they’re teaching the kids about what it is and use it as a demonstration piece to show that you can power your buildings and power your life with renewable energy. So that’s kind of where we’re coming from, and this session that we’re leading at the Green Schools Summit is really about enabling schools to go solar and some of the things that have happened very recently in the financial products market and then also on the technology side that are really making it much easier for them to go solar.
K-12 school administrators, teachers, board members, facilities managers, and other school community members are meeting in Pasadena next week for an innovative three-day conference on green schools in California. The conference, the Green California Schools Summit, reflects the Golden State’s leadership in sustainable K-12 school buildings and programs. The conference will be held at the Pasedena Conference Center on December 4-6.
According to the conference website, “This groundbreaking event will focus on the strategies, technologies, and services that will ensure that new and existing public schools are models of sustainability and provide a healthy learning environment for students.”
When Amy wrote about green magazines, she mentioned GOOD
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