Making your green building a teaching tool

I. A green school building can be a demonstration site for students, parents and community to learn about environmental science:

a. Develop a User’s guide for the building highlighting sustainable aspects

b. Develop walking tours of the building and grounds

c. Train student Docents to lead tours of the building and grounds

d. Develop a Power Point or video of the sustainable features

e. Write articles for newsletters, newspapers and community press about sustainable aspects of the building

f. Create environmental signage pointing out the sustainable features

g. Place a clear, large-capacity rain barrel on a down spout

h. Expose mechanical components so that their function is understood

II. A green school building can support and encourage hands-on student experiences with sustainability:

a. Construct a rain garden and/or wetlands to deal with storm water

b. Landscape with native plants which don’t need watering

c. Mount rain gauges and thermometers outside of classroom windows

d. Design a recycling center into each “Pod” so students break down boxes, recycle white paper, plastic and metal

e. Compost food scraps from the cafeteria and use on the school garden

f. Create a School Garden with the Civic Garden Center

III. In a high performing school building, teachers can integrate sustainable aspects of the design into the academic curriculum K-12

a. Create environmental signage of plants and trees on the school grounds

b. Design an interactive computer (Smart Board) in a central location to monitor real-time energy and water usage and/or production

c. Graph depth of sunlight into the room in various seasons

d. Measure amount of paper recycled in each pod and calculate how many trees were saved

e. Measure plastic recycled and figure out how much plastic fence could be produced

f. Measure rainfall and calculate amount of water from the school grounds that goes into the storm sewer after a rainstorm. (Sq. Feet of roof x 623 divided by 1,000=gallons of water per 1 inch of rain). Invite in MSD to show where storm water goes in this neighborhood.

g. Write a grant for a solar panel for the school. Calculate amount of Kilowatts of electricity produced and consumed by the school.

h. Create a list of ways to save energy in the school.

i. Demonstrate airflow in the classroom and diagram how air born germs are carried in this classroom vs. a traditional circulating air system

j. Teach heat transfer and create problems using R factor of wall insulation vs. windows

k. Monitor passive solar gain using thermometers near the windows and away form the windows.

l. “Greenmap” the school and the surrounding area. Map the pedestrian walkways, bike paths, public transportation and parking lots. Survey students as to how they get to school and calculate petroleum use for each method.

Environmental Lesson plans and Resources

The AMBIENT Project is focused around the four environmental themes of air, water, soil and food, as well as an additional emphasis on ethics and toxicology. This health-science problem-based learning approach is being delivered by trained teachers to the ethnically diverse population of high school students: http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/groups/niehs/ambient/modules.html

Lesson plans are available in many curriculum areas based on the Illinois state standards:

http://www.greeningschools.org/resources/curricula.cfm

An Inconvenient Truth Study Guide: http://www.aninconvenienttruth.com.au/truth/guide.htm

Greening School Grounds, Creating Habitats for Learning, Edited by Tim Grant and Gail littlejohn, New Society Publishers, 2001 (http://www.greenteacher.com

Last Child in the Woods, Saving our children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard louv Algonquin Books. 2006

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