September 12th, 2008 · No Comments

“The biggest hit we’ve had so far was our school-wide Earth Day Fair that we held this year in May. We devoted an entire afternoon at school to the fair, and the kids loved it! We started it out with everyone bringing their own lunch for a school-wide picnic under a big tree outside, with Green Music by Frank Meyer playing while we all ate. We had a contest for the class with the least amount of trash; by bringing their own containers and not having a lot of trash, we were teaching them to reduce, recycle, reuse. We weighed each of the classes’ trash after lunch, and the top three classes with the least amount of trash weight won prizes,” Cox said. “It was loads of fun!”

“We even had a ‘Trash Man’ who was dressed up like a trashy guy who went around pretending to throw things away everywhere, and the kids were laughing and telling him, ‘no, no don’t do that!’ It was great.”

Brentwood Elementary, which is part of the Austin Independent School District, spent the rest of that afternoon sending students to different environmental stations, to teach everyone about reducing, reusing, and recycling; learning about energy, and more about their planet. In one of their learning stations, Cox talks about how they had a “ReduceReuseRecycleRow,” where kids reused old magazines to make paper bead jewelry, and reused milk cartons were used to make bird feeders.

How To Go G-R-E-E-N

The Go Green Initiative uses five principles to teach environmentally friendly behavior on campuses; they spell out the word G-R-E-E-N:

1. Generate compost
2. Recycle everything that can’t be reused, and purchase items that can be recycled
3. Educate students, teachers and parents on environmentally-responsible behavior by working together
4. Evaluate the environmental impact of every activity, identify products and practices and consider improvement in all areas
5. Nationalize the principles of responsible paper consumption, by considering the purchase of post consumer recycled paper and office products and using technology to communicate electronically as much as possible; seek ways to provide Internet access to all school families.

The Go Green Initiative is a fun and simple program meant to, “Create a culture of environmental responsibility on school campuses across the nation,” Buck explains. “And the end result is hopefully teaching kids to be responsible caretakers of the planet and more environmental awareness for all involved.”

To get started, sign up at the website site to receive their newsletter. Then read and save their helpful information such as a public relations kit for schools.

There are several document templates to download; guidance for procuring program sponsors; support information for principals; tips for teachers and an extensive list of links and resources for schools. The site is packed with useful information and fun facts (”You can run a TV for six hours on the amount of electricity that is saved by recycling one aluminum can.”) to get everyone warmed up.

A key feature: They have online and telephone support available for any snag you may encounter. No matter your role — teacher, principal, or parent — guidance for going green is just a click or a phone call away.

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