Greening Your School

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Greening Your School

• How One Educator Can
• Make a Difference

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Webinar Protocols

• Audio
• Listen online, or dial in [phone]code
  284-061-387.
• Useful Information
• Webinar ID 600-427-736.
• QA
• Use the Questions panel to submit questions.
• Recordings
• Recordings of the webinar will be emailed.
• Problems?
• Call 1 [phone] (U.S. Canada).
• Email gotowebinar_at_citrixonline.com.

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Greening Your School

• How One Educator Can
• Make a Difference

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Tom Koulentes
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Schools in an Environmental Context

• Schools
• have large environmental footprints.
• often rely on inefficient energy systems and
  outdated technology.
• seldom monitor environmental impact.
• rarely have metrics or methods for accurately
  assessing energy requirements.

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The Green School Initiative
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Transforming My School

• The GSI
• is a club composed of students, staff, and
  administrators.
• meets weekly after school.
• transforms high school into an environmentally
  friendly, conservation-minded institution.
• has no formal operating budgetit pays for all
  projects through fundraising.

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Specific Goals

• REDUCE
• Develop strategies to
• reduce the schools
• use of energy and
• natural resources and
• to limit pollutants
• and toxins.

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Specific Goals

• REUSE
• Develop methods for
• reusing more school
• resources.

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Specific Goals

• RECYCLE
• Create and sustain
• recycling programs
• schoolwide.
• Waste collected for
• recycling
• Paper
• Plastic
• Aluminum
• Glass
• Computers

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Additional Goals

• RESEARCH
• Conduct classroom and after-school investigations
  to find new
• ways to become more environmentally efficient and
  responsible.
• REDESIGN
• Help redesign existing school structures so they
  become more
• environmentally efficient.
• EDUCATION
• Develop programs, curricula, and practices that
  educate the
• school and the community about environmental
  issues.

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Selected GSI Projects

• Adoption of green cleaning chemicals
• Creation of school recycling program
• Anti-idling campaign
• Turtle and butterfly sanctuary
• Earth Week activities
• School energy audit

• Design alternative energy lab
• P2D2 (prescription-drug-disposal program)
• Promotion of reusable bags for grocery shopping
• Community rain-barrel project

For a complete list of our projects, visit our
school Web site, at hphs.dist113.org.
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Pass on Gas Day

• The event
• takes place during Earth Week.
• encourages students and staff to bike or walk to
  school.
• educates the community about CO2 and pollution
  from cars.

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Prairie Restorations
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Prairie Restorations

• Students
• learn about the importance of native plants.
• learn about native ecosystem.
• restore and plant native gardens.

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Water-Bottle Fill-Up Stations

• The GSI
• educated the school community about the
  environmental impact of using disposable plastic
  water bottles.
• installed fill-up stations on drinking fountains.

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The Biodiesel Lab

• Waste vegetable oil collected from school
  cafeteria.
• Students create biodiesel reactor and learn to
  make biofuel.
• Biofuel used in school tractors.

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Enhancing Curriculum

• Enriched learning
• allows students to work as scientists and
  conservationists.
• provides authentic context for curriculum skills.
• increases academic motivation.

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Educational Impact

• Actively incorporated into curriculum.
• Students conduct projects as part of authentic
  assessment.

• Environmental Science and AP Environmental
  Science enrollment has exploded!
• Many GSI alums pursue science degrees in college.

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Tips for Success

• Identify grantsstudents can write them.
• Fundraising ideas
• T-shirts
• Water bottles
• Reusable bags and lunch gear
• After-school pizza sales
• Native-plant sale

• Students drive the program.
• Keep projects manageable and focused on
  short-term, achievable results.
• Find administrative representation and support.

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Tim Grant
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Education is shallowly rooted in human culture.
It should be tap-rooted in ecology. Robert
Harrington, author of To Heal the Earth
Jane Low-Beer, Green Teacher
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Part A Elementary School 3 Service-Learning
Projects 5 Teaching Ideas
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1. Develop an Outdoor Classroom
Credit Chuck Heath, Green Teacher
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Credit iStockphoto
Recruit a committee of interested teachers,
parents, and students.
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School Grounds in a BoxModel Making as a Design
Tool
Credit Anne Coffey, Green Teacher
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Consider adding a shallow pond to promote
biodiversity and teach about water safety.
Credit Sharon Danks, Green Teacher
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Ask other teachers about what barriers they see
to taking their kids outdoors.
Credit Karan Wood, Green Teacher
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Credit Hilary Inwood, Green Teacher

• Learning in the Outdoor Classroom
• Use your school garden as inspiration, supply
  cupboard, and exhibition space for student art.

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2. Active and Safe Routes to School Projects
Credit Active Safe Routes to School, Nova
Scotia
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Credit Active Safe Routes to School, Nova
Scotia

• Walking school buses (walktoschool.org)

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A rural example Walking Wednesdays
Credit Active Safe Routes to School, Nova
Scotia
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Mapping Safe Routes to School
Credit Fran Jovick, Green Teacher
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Publicize your efforts and/or seek public-policy
changes.
Credit Stewart Wilson, Green Teacher
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• 3. Raise and Release Monarch Butterflies

Credit Lonnie Duberstein, Green Teacher
monarchlab.org
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For establishing a deep personal connection to
nature, there are few equivalents that match
watching metamorphosis unfold in a classroom.
Credits Sonia Altizer, D. Alstad, Karen
Oberhauser, Green Teacher
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• If you have to find food in your neighborhood
  for emerging monarchs, you become passionate
  about preserving their host plants and
  biodiversity in general.

Credit Gail Littlejohn, Green Teacher
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Credit Barbara Chamerlain, Green Teacher

• As newly released monarchs start their
  southerly migration, we are connected to
  ecosystems far away.

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5 Ideas for Elementary Schools

• Teach watershed management with a garden hose.
• Use a classroom worm bin to teach basic math and
  to learn about ecosystems.
• Make a One World cake to explore our connections
  with other peoples and ecosystems around the
  globe.
• Undertake a food-web simulation game.
• Make mud bricks, felt, or butter by hand to
  reclaim our natural human heritage.

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• Part B
• Middle School 3 Service-Learning Projects 5
  Teaching Ideas

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1. Participate in an Ecological Restoration
Project
Credit Fred Wilson, Green Teacher
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Credit Fred Wilson, Green Teacher

• Stream monitoring and restoration

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Plant surveys
Credit Roxine de Pencier, Green Teacher
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Credit Roxine de Pencier, Green Teacher

• Insect and Bird Monitoring
• Ask state Project Wild WET coordinators about
  monitoring projects in your area.

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2. Students as Town Planners
Credit Ted Mitchell, Green Teacher
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Credit Ted Mitchell, Green Teacher

• Visual-preference surveys are a good first step.

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Credit Ted Mitchell, Green Teacher
Studying growth history and future projections
leads naturally to making recommendations.
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3. A Constructed Wetland From Monitoring to
Action
Credit Dan Kowal, Green Teacher
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Credit Dan Kowal, Green Teacher
Rusty water led to discovery of acid mine
drainage and an experiment.
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(No Transcript)
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Credit Dan Kowal, Green Teacher
Building and testing their constructed wetland
required many community partners.
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5 Ideas for Middle Schools

• Use natures daily and seasonal drama as the
  focus for a middle school science course.
• Promote multisensory learning about important
  concepts with active games.
• Have students map the natural/built environment
  in the square kilometer around the school.
• Use art, drama, and pageantry to build a sense of
  community and a rapport with other species via an
  All Species Project.
• Have students calculate their ecological
  footprints using online calculators.

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QA

• Please use the Questions pane on the right or use
  edutopiawebinar on Twitter to submit any
  questions you may have.
• For unanswered questions, we encourage you to
  continue the discussion at our new Green Schools
  group, at edutopia.org/groups.
• For additional resources, including the
  PowerPoint presentation and useful links, go to
  edutopia.org/webinar-october.

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Contact Information

• Tom Koulentes tkoulentes_at_dist113.org or GSI Web
  site, at dist113.org/hphs
• Tim Grant tim_at_greenteacher.com or
  greenteacher.com

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Thanks for Attending

• Let us know what you think by filling out the
  survey.
• If you know anyone who would like to be a part
  of Edutopia, refer them to our membership page,
  at edutopia.org/join.
• Stay tuned for our upcoming webinar in December
  on Houstons YES Prep North Central.

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