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

As a CPS educator and an officer of the Cincinnati Federation of teachers, I have had the privilege of representing the teacher’s union on the Growing Green and Healthy Schools Planning committee.  This last year,  I have attended a series of forums and workshops and visited green and healthy schools buildings in Kentucky, Maryland and Washington DC and have learned so much. I have seen beautiful school buildings that not only conserve energy and water but support improved academic achievement and wellness through improved air quality and increased natural daylight.   We in CPS are building schools that will also contain many of these green aspects.  What we are not doing yet is creatively using our school buildings as a teaching tools to actively engage and motivate students in their math and science education.

Growing Green and Healthy Schools sponsored a technical assistance workshop for school planning teams last week at the Zoo Academy, our first LEED certified school building. We learned that making the building a teaching tool is a part of the LEED certification process.  More than 100 planning team members, architects, teachers, community and environmental groups came to talk about building LEED certified schools. At the workshop, a number of civic and environmental groups stepped forward to offer their services to schools to be partners in launching such an initiative which would create hands-on, standards-based science and math experiences using the green aspects of our school buildings

For example, The Metropolitan Sewer District would like to partner with us to ensure that our schools are examples of best practice of storm water management.  A hands-on lesson could begin by estimating and then calculating the area of a school’s roof multiplied by the volume of water per square foot that would fall on the roof in an inch rainfall.  With this new knowledge, students and teachers could work with MSD to plan and build rain gardens, right-size rain barrels and cisterns or construct living roofs so that that is water can be diverted from the storm sewer.   This could really make science come to life for our students and make them a part of improving the environment for all citizens in Cincinnati.

This is just one example of what would be possible.  I hope that you will support this unique and timely opportunity to make our schools teaching tools, for our curriculum councils and the GE math and science initiative to build hands-on science and math lessons with community partners who have the resources to use aspects of our new and renovated buildings as a teaching tool.

In my travels this summer, I went to Seneca Creek Elementary school in Maryland.  It is a LEED Gold rated school.  As you enter the building, there is a mural of the water cycle that shows how water ends up in Seneca creek.   When students guide classes and visitors around their school, their first stop is the lobby where they explain the water cycle.  I am convinced that student in that school will never miss a question on their state assessment about the water cycle!  I want to see the same success for the students of Cincinnati Public Schools.

There are “givens” of green in each CPS school based on the May 8th Green Schools resolution that the School Board passed in 2006 (Improved indoor air quality, types of windows/percent of windows, insulation, etc.) Knowing more about these green features can reinforce planning teams belief that CPS is committed to building greener schools. But this involves planning teams making choices between green features. Some green elements are a good fit their particular site, budget and/or curriculum. That is why they need to understand what choices are out there. No school can include all the green features available. Some green choices cost more than others. Some green choices fit better.

When we started our first schools, Pleasant Hill Elementary in College Hill, for example, their storm water management was to build a big rectangular field that has to be mowed behind the school with banked edges so that water would collect there. They also put in rip rap–large stones leading to a low point which is now a wetland. The wetlands weren’t “planned” and have not been incorporated into the landscape or school curriculum. There are no native plants introduced or no attempt made to provide the right habitat for wildlife in the wetlands, for example. Shouldn’t there at least put up martin houses to try to control the mosquitoes?

I know that we can do better in the planning phase so that water management becomes an opportunity for the school to use the grounds as a teaching tool to improve math and science achievement for all students.
Diana