Greening Schools
| Press the play button to view an introduction to the Greening Schools project from Carol Knepp. |
Making schools healthier and improving the learning environment are the goals of the Greening Schools project. Beginning in the fall of 2003, WMRC and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency combined efforts to assist schools with improving their physical environmental conditions, while also providing teachers with standards-based tools to introduce the concepts of waste reduction and pollution prevention.
The Greening Schools project offers a Web site for teachers and school administrators. Fact sheets, checklists and standards-based lesson plans, book resources, curricula and activities related to waste reduction and pollution prevention are provided on the Web site. The content is continually updated and is responsive to requests and needs from the education community. Other project benefits for teachers and schools administrators include:
- Free on-site technical assistance to assess building conditions. There have been ten site visits since the start of this project.
- On-line help desk to answer questions
- Listserv with a weekly mailing of timely, valuable resources
- Teachers can submit chemistry lessons for evaluation and WMRC chemists will offer suggestions on how the lesson can be changed to incorporate safer, less toxic chemicals
- Information on environmentally preferable purchasing
The project also offers Safe Chemicals in Education workshops that address chemicals found in chemistry and biology labs as well as in the art rooms, industrial shops and performing arts. Teachers participating in these workshops learn about the risks associated with out-of-date and improperly stored chemicals as well as how to reduce chemical volume and how to substitute the traditional chemicals with safer materials. Schools that participate in the Safe Chemicals workshops are eligible for removal of educational waste chemicals at no cost. These workshops also introduce the principles of "green chemistry" to middle school and high school teachers, and show how they can be integrated into the classroom. Green chemistry involves the reduction or elimination of the use or generation of hazardous materials in chemical processes, which results in safer, more environmentally friendly science.
Schools are increasingly facing a variety of health-related issues. While these differ from school to school because of the varying ages of facilities and unique environmental challenges, schools typically share some of the same constraints:
- Limited funding to address environmental conditions
- Rising costs of energy and maintenance of school building
- Lack of resources and technical assistance for teachers, administrators and staff
While hazardous materials are recognized issues, energy costs and indoor air quality also present real concerns for schools. Pest control and waste reduction and their associated costs have also become health and budget topics for school districts. WMRC's Greening Schools project is committed to assisting schools address these issues while providing the most current resources and high-quality technical assistance available at no cost. The Center will continue building a strong network of support and resources across the state working to address the needs of individual schools and teachers.
Visit the Greening Schools web site at http://www.greeningschools.org
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