How Can You Help Your Child's School Go Green?
So, you and your family have gone green. Your home is energy efficient, you use public transportation, and you make full use of your town's recycling programs. So what is the next frontier? Take your environmental savvy to the classroom -- give your child's school a lesson on going green!
The first and most important step in going green at your kid's school is to get others involved. It's much more difficult, if not impossible, to make significant, lasting change on your own. Identify one person within the school system who can champion the environmental cause at your side. There are probably already teachers or administration members who are as concerned as you are about their school's impact on the environment. Try asking your children whether they know of any teachers (perhaps a science teacher) who might be interested in helping you out. Form an environmental committee with other parents, students, officials, and townspeople. If your child's school has a Parent Teacher Association (PTA/PTO), schedule time during one of the association's meetings when you can present your concerns to its members. One way of doing this is to produce your own multimedia presentation (like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth"), sharing your knowledge of the science and ethics of global warming and other environmental issues. It's important that people understand the pressing reasons for making the school eco-friendly.
Once you've built your support base, keep environmental concerns fresh in the minds of those involved with the school system. To keep students involved, you might hold a student poster contest promoting environmentally-friendly school practices. Make copies of the winning posters and display them in prominent locations on school walls. If you've formed a committee within the school, encourage the members to continually monitor the school's use of resources, and the possibilities for making the school greener. When an environmental issue arises in local or national news, make sure that the school community is aware of what's going on.
One of the easiest ways to improve your school's impact on the environment, even if you don't have support within the school system, is to promote eco-friendly transportation practices. Begin by encouraging your children and others to use either public transportation or their own legs.
Organize a carpool system -- not just a single carpool. Do some research to determine the major neighborhoods where the school's children live. Organize a car pool from a central location in each of those neighborhoods. The more parents who are willing to help out, the fewer trips any individual parent will have to make.
If your city provides bus transportation for students, make sure the school asks the bus drivers to minimize idling time, to limit auto emissions while not en route.
If you want kids to walk, work with teachers to limit the number of books and supplies children have to carry home. When buying school clothes or designing school uniforms, keep in mind that children should be able to walk or ride a bike to school in them. For small children who live within walking distance of their school, organize walking carpools. A walking carpool is just like a regular carpool, except that instead of piling kids into one car, one parent walks a group of neighborhood children to school each day. Older kids can probably walk or bike to school on their own, but you should teach travel safety to all children. If even older students can't safely walk to school, work with city authorities to develop safer walking/cycling routes to and from schools.
It's also important that students who bike to school have a secure place to store their bicycles, so that they won't have to worry about theft during the school day. To facilitate this, encourage the school to build a bicycle shed, or volunteer to build one with other parents.
Conserving energy, water, and other resources is an important part of staying eco-friendly. But before you can fix wasteful practices in your school, you have to know about them. Ask the school to get in touch with the local energy utility about a site visit, or take advantage of EPA tools to help you to calculate the school's carbon footprint. Use the EPA's Climate Change Emission Calculator Kit (Climate CHECK for high schools) or Global Warming Wheel Card Kit (for middle schools) to examine connections between the "Greenhouse Effect" and everyday life at your school. You might also encourage your child to perform an energy, water, or waste audit of the school -- looking for things like inefficient lightbulbs that are left on, drafty windows and doors, and leaky faucets. In addition to providing a valuable service to the school, your child will be learning about key environmental concerns.
Talk to those in charge of supplying the school about purchasing energy-saving equipment and appliances. In the cafeteria, ask your school to look into buying produce from local growers. The administration might be more open to this kind of change if you do some research yourself and give them a list of possible suppliers.
Taking steps to reduce energy waste can be easy -- kids can encourage their teachers to turn off lights and other appliances when classrooms aren't in use, as well as computer monitors and printers. But some steps cost a lot of money -- replacing appliances, windows, and doors; fixing leaks; and changing lighting can be expensive. Don't let that discourage you. Try conducting a fundraiser specifically for making eco-friendly changes to the school. It will help to get even more people involved in your campaign.
If your area is planning to build a new school, it's the perfect opportunity to make investments in infrastructure that will improve the environment for the rest of the school's future. Lobby to use builders who are more aware of environmental concerns.
Many of the eco-friendly changes you can make to the outside of the school are similar to changes you may have considered at home: planting evergreen trees on the north side of the building, and deciduous trees on the south and west sides; substituting ground covers or hardscaping for thirsty lawn; using hardy native plants, and so on. Consider having a tree drive, like you might have a canned food drive, to encourage community members to donate saplings to plant on school grounds. Plant them near air conditioners, and their shade will help the air conditioners use less valuable energy.
Instruct the next generation about wise use of the landscape. You can volunteer to take kids on a nature walk and teach them about local plants, animals, and the environment. Schools with some outdoor space to spare could establish a garden as an outdoor learning project. Children will enjoy tending the garden as part of their school routine, if your school is open to the idea. You could provide gardening lessons, or even seeds and seedlings. Make a composting station near the garden for any organic waste the school produces.
The last piece of advice we have for you and your school is this: reduce, reuse, recycle! Start a recycling club at the school. Members can go around on a weekly or daily basis to collect recyclable material from classrooms for pickup by the city. Also encourage students to buy reusable water bottles for daily in-school use, so they don't need to buy so many one-use plastic bottles from vending machines. Use lunchboxes or other reusable containers for your children's lunches.
If students in your school buy their own books, organize a textbook exchange so that students can purchase used copies of any books they need, instead of buying new ones. If such an exchange isn't possible, encourage kids to buy from Internet sites that sell used books.
Give It a Try
There's no time like the present to get started. If you try even a couple of these suggestions for getting your school to go green, you'll be helping to preserve the environment for the future of your children and generations to follow.
