By Diane Porter
Green Right Now

There’s a shiny green report card out in Warren County, Kentucky this month.

The county’s school district won the Alliance to Save Energy’s 2009 Andromeda Award for its programs, which include $4 million in energy savings over the last five years, a 28 percent energy use reduction, a daily curriculum that focuses on energy efficiency and Energy Star ratings on four buildings. But the star of their show undoubtedly is the new Richardsville Elementary, a Warren County School on target to become the nation’s first net zero energy public school when it opens in fall of 2010 (see photo above).

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By Diane Porter
Green Right Now

Deb Lovig’s official title at Cree, the lighting and semiconductor company, is “LED Programs Evangelist.” The description fits. Ask her to pick a favorite project and she’ll name five before you get her stopped. She’ll skip from North Carolina State’s dorm lighting project (see picture, right) to the University of California-Davis’ smart parking garage to Notre Dame’s beautiful acorn-shaped fixtures without taking a breath.

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University of Maryland Report

EDMONSTON, Md.—The Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River runs through the heart of Edmonston, Md. In somewhat of a give-and-take relationship, runoff from Edmonston’s streets and parking lots carries many pollutants into the river; when it rains, the Anacostia “gives back” in the way of flash floods caused by overwhelming amounts of stormwater coming from upstream communities.

Kristen Markham, project leader, at the end of the trench where the outflow pipe from the bioretention drains into the existing stormwater drainage. (Photo by Kristine Caiafa)

Recently, 24 students from the University of Maryland partnered with local agencies to develop a natural system that could alleviate the flooding problems and decrease the amounts of pollutants flowing into the Anacostia River Watershed by building a bioretention system at Tanglewood Park.

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By Shermakaye Bass
Green Right Now

Besides producing some of the most esteemed graduates in the world, Cornell University is cultivating something altogether different: Compost. And it’s getting kudos for doing so.

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From Green Right Now Reports:

St. Louis will become home to one of North America’s greenest buildings, the Washington University Living Learning Center at the university’s Tyson Research Center. The building will be a “net zero energy” and “zero wastewater” operation that will be used as a teaching facility for student gatherings and camps.

The center, unveiled with a pre-opening ceremony this past week, is being built to meet the toughest green building rating system in the world, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, which is a chapter affiliate of the U.S. Green Building Council and the Canadian Green Building Council, which award LEED ratings.

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By Harriet Blake

The best teachers inspire. Their grasp and excitement of a subject is contagious. Talking to Bertha Vazquez, Susan Vincent and Patrick Curley, you can’t come away without absorbing at least a sliver of their passion for the environment.

This month the National Environmental Education Foundation recognized Vazquez, Vincent and Curley for their innovative approaches to environmental education. Bertha Vazquez, a middle school teacher at a magnet school in Coral Gables, Fla., won the Richard C. Bartlett Education Award, named after the chairman of the Nature Conservancy of Texas. Patrick Curley, a middle and high-school teacher who works with at-risk students in Jacksonville, NC, and Susan Vincent, an earth and marine science teacher in East Harlem, NY, won certificates of merit.

“Kids have always related to the environment,” says Vazquez, who teaches at George Washington Carver Middle School in the Miami-Dade school system. “Teachers need to look for real-life connections that kids can relate to.”

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Photo: PRNewswire
Methane gas from Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise in Rochester, N.H., is collected, purified, and compressed before travelling via a 12.7-mile pipeline to the University of New Hampshire.

From Green Right Now Reports

The University of New Hampshire announced today that it has completed its “EcoLine” gas-to-energy project, which will use purified methane gas from a nearby landfill to power the campus. The five million square-foot campus in Durham, N.H., will receive up to 85 percent of its electricity and heat from the system, making UNH the first university in the nation to use landfill gas as its primary fuel source.

EcoLine is a partnership between the university and Waste Management’s Turnkey Recycling and Environmental Enterprise in Rochester, N.H. Methane gas, a naturally occurring by-product of landfill decomposition, is collected via a state-of-the-art collection system consisting of more than 300 extraction wells and miles of collection pipes.

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By Laura Elizabeth May
Green Right Now

Sodexo, a food service and facilities management company responsible for millions of cafeteria meals across the country, and students at Ithaca College recently joined together to green the college’s dining operations.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Twenty-two teams of U.S. middle school students have been named state finalists in the inaugural Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge, in which the students were asked to “go green” by creating and implementing environmental change in their local communities. Two national winning teams and one grand prize-winning team will be chosen and announced on May 18.

More than 2,000 students participated in the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge and state finalist projects covered topics such as e-waste recycling, ecosystem restoration and water conservation. The Siemens Foundation partnered with Discovery Education and National Science Teachers Association on the competition, which will expand to elementary schools in 2009 and to high schools in 2010.

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InfoWorld has released its list of the Green 15, companies that are making a difference through their use of sustainable IT. Click on the names below to visit InfoWorld and read more about how these organizations are using green tech to realize gains in efficiency, productivity, and cost savings.

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Photo: Business Wire
Green Youth Movement founder Ally Maize (second from left) plants the sustainable garden with her parents, Richard Maize (left), Rochelle Maize (back, standing) and two Archer School friends on Earth Day 2009.

From Green Right Now Reports

As the nation celebrated Earth Day this week, teen environmentalist and Green Youth Movement founder Ally Maize led schoolmates in planting the first “sustainable garden” at The Archer School for Girls in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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By Carol Soneklar
Green Right Now

Although every teacher and student at Green Woods Charter School will be devoting themselves to a full day of environmental service this Earth Day, in reality, it’s pretty much like any other day at the school.

The only public charter school in the country that is located inside a nature center-Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education and its surrounding 350 acres in Philadelphia-Green Woods uses environmental and ecological concepts to drive the development of its curriculum and instruction.

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