Focus on America

Green schools are in vogue in the U.S.

Three years have passed since students at Redmond High School near Seattle set out to measure their school’s carbon footprint. They looked at the school’s electricity and water consumption, how much waste it produces and where it goes, how students and teachers travel to school — and at every other school activity that generates greenhouse gas emissions.

Today, the school in the northwestern United States is saving some $30,000 in annual electricity costs, compared with power costs three years earlier. Waste costs have dropped by $10,000. Carbon dioxide emissions, meanwhile, are down by 200,000 pounds annually. That means Redmond High has beaten the goals set by the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty.

Not bad for a school with 1,400 students. So how did they do it?

“We’re educating the kids that climate change has some pretty simple solutions,” explained Mike Town, Redmond High’s environmental science teacher, who pioneered the now-national Cool School Challenge initiative, a call for students and schools to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

“If they turn off the lights in a classroom for one hour they save the school district 4 cents in electricity costs,” Town said. “But when you show them that they also save half a pound of carbon dioxide, then it means a lot more to them. The actions that the students perform have a carbon consequence and that’s what we’re trying to teach them.”

Redmond High is part of a rapidly growing green school movement that is marshalling hundreds of schools and thousands of teachers across the United States to press for better environmental practices and instruction during school hours. Earth Day Network, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental group, is playing an important role in this effort through its Green Schools initiative. Green Schools offers grants and education curriculums to schools that want to go green, along with practical assistance for projects such as garden design and construction and implementing recycling programs.

Earth Day Network, with the Clinton Foundation and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), launched Green Schools in 2007. Since then, 300 schools have been certified as “green” in accordance with USGBC’s stringent LEED standards for energy-efficiency (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). More than 1,700 schools are in line to be certified.

One school that recently met the mark is the newly constructed T.C. Williams High School, just south of Washington, D.C. A 450,000-gallon (1.7 million-liter) cistern collects rainwater for flushing, cooling and irrigation at the school — rather than using potable drinking water for such purposes. Parking outside the school is designed to limit concrete and asphalt areas that create so-called urban heat islands. A vegetated roof filters storm water and reduces runoff while providing a nature laboratory for students, while ceilings angled to harvest daylight provide warmth and natural light.

T.C. Williams is also using the building to teach students about the impact they’re having on the environment. All water and energy consumption at the school, for example, is tracked and displayed for the students to see. The local school district is now restructuring its entire high school curriculum to incorporate sustainability practices and environmental knowledge.

OBAMA SEEKS FUNDING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY

Building what Earth Day Network calls a “green generation” of children who grow up to be environmentally conscious citizens “takes a long time, and we’re still in the early stages,” said Sean Miller, the group’s director of education. “That’s why we’ve defined this generational change to take 25 to 40 years. Within that time frame, we’re looking to see a complete transformation of school building standards as well as our school curriculum.”

Many students in the United States get no environmental education until they reach high school at age 13 or 14, if any at all. But that could change soon. President Obama’s proposed budget for 2011 asks for $100 million a year to increase environmental literacy in American schools and strengthen such education from elementary school and up.

The momentum is already there. Many schools that cannot meet LEED criteria because their buildings are too old or out-of-date are taking whatever steps they can to lessen their impact on the environment and to teach kids a lesson in the process. At Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, Illinois, for example, science students implemented a schoolwide recycling program run by the kids. They also collect cooking oil from the school kitchen and turn it into biodiesel in chemistry class to fuel a school bus.

With the help of Earth Day Network, students recently opened a new, professional greenhouse where they grow vegetables. “I thought of having a vegetable [vendor] stand,” said Jill Krysinski, director of the Bloom High School Science Club. “We’ll see what happens.”

Many students at Redmond High, meanwhile, are now carpooling or biking to school. Once they’ve used alternative transportation 50 times to or from the school, they get a cash prize of $25 that can be donated to a school club or used to buy carbon dioxide offsets. This and the other green initiatives at Redmond High this year earned Town, the school’s environmental science teacher, the NEA Foundation’s Green Prize in Public Education.

By Karin Rives
Staff Writer
Washington