We should all be concerned with the health and well being of children as well as a positive school learning environments worldwide. Establishing environmentally sustainable schools is a way to reach such important goals. There has been tremendous interest in the need to build healthy, environmentally friendly and energy efficient schools, “green” schools. We must teach our future generation about how to make the planet healthy.
Website resources which will help educators find ways to promote healthy school environments.
Green Teacher
(http://www.greenteacher.com/)
Green Teacher is a magazine that helps educators enhance environmental and global education inside and outside of schools. The magazine is produced four times a year and contains 50 pages of activities for educators. Each issue contains ideas for rethinking education in light of environmental and global challenges, practical articles and ready-to-use activities for various age levels, and resource reviews.
Alliance to Save Energy
(http://ase.org/section/program/greenschl)
Energy costs are an enormous expense for our nation’s schools. To help free up more resources for education while strengthening academic learning, the Alliance’s Green Schools Program engages students in creating energy-saving activities in their schools, using hands-on, real-world projects.
United States Green Building Council- Build Green Schools
(http://www.buildgreenschools.org/)
Twenty percent of America goes to school every day. Too many of these students and teachers attend schools that are inefficient. These schools miss important opportunities to reduce operational costs, foster learning, and protect student health. By promoting the design and construction of green schools, we can make a tremendous impact on student health, test scores, teacher retention, school operational costs and the environment.
The Sustainable Schools Project
(http://www.sustainableschoolsproject.org/)
The Sustainable Schools Project is a dynamic new model for school improvement and civic engagement. The program helps schools use sustainability as an integrating context for curriculum, community partnerships, and campus practices.
Edutopia – What Works in Public Education
(http://www.edutopia.org/green-school-buildings)
More and more of America’s K-12 schools are embracing green building design and construction. Armed with a host of data showing that students learn better in environmentally friendly spaces and that schools can save significantly on operating costs by building green, districts across the nation are constructing hundreds of new facilities according to sustainable principles.
Global Green – Green Schools Initiative
(http://www.globalgreen.org/)
Today, millions of children and teachers (20% of all Americans) go to school every day. Many of them go to unhealthy, inefficient schools that waste money, make kids sick and provide poor environments for learning. The state of aging school infrastructure is truly a national travesty. But with millions of kids at risk, and the opportunity to dramatically improve learning conditions at schools, we must build green schools NOW.
The Green Schools Initiative
(http://www.greenschools.net/)
The Green Schools Initiative was founded in 2004 by parent-environmentalists who were shocked by how un-environmental their kids’ schools were and mobilized to improve the environmental health and ecological sustainability of schools in the U.S. We believe it is essential to protect children’s health – at school and in the world beyond school – and we work to catalyze and support “green” actions by kids, teachers, parents, and policymakers to eliminate toxics, use resources sustainably, create green spaces and buildings, serve healthy food, and teach stewardship.
Green Schools Checklist- Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pollutant Prevention
(http://www.epa.state.il.us/p2/green-schools/green-schools-checklist.pdf)
This checklist focuses on common-sense improvements that schools can make in their daily operations that will minimize or stop potential health and environmental problems before they start. The emphasis has been placed on prevention-oriented strategies.
Eco-Schools
(http://www.eco-schools.org/)
Eco-Schools is a program for environmental management and certification, designed to implement sustainable development education in schools by encouraging children and youth to take an active role in how their school can be run for the benefit of the environment. Currently, the Program is being implemented in 47 countries around the world, involving 31,145 schools, 8,604,397 students, 628,903 teachers and 4,659 local authorities.
Educating Tomorrow
(http://www.educatingtomorrow.org/)
Educating Tomorrow was started to bring attention to the lack of recycling in New York City schools. This website has a listing of additional resources for building a recycling programs in schools.
The United Nations Sustainable Building and Climate Initiative
(http://www.unep.org/sbci/index.asp)
UNEP-SBCI works to promote sustainable building practices worldwide. This is a joint effort with key stakeholders in this sectors of industry, business, governments, local authorities, research institutions, academia, experts, and NGOs
