Going Green in the Classroom
I
Going Green is a term commonly coined when referencing recycling or giving back to the earth somehow. A lot of people are probably already familiar with recycling bins and have talked about going green on Earth Day, or planted a tree on Arbor Day. While these are all good starts, what I wanted to know is how I can make not only my classroom “green,” but extend the green awareness throughout the whole school year and educate my students and by extension their families how important and easy it is to go green.
My previous knowledge about going green was limited to what I do in my household. When I bought my house in 2009, I began sorting my recyclables and taking them off to one of the many recycling centers in Jefferson County. I quickly noticed how I was not accumulating as much trash and now, four years and one baby later, my family probably averages one bag of trash a week. Donating no longer wanted items to Goodwill, replacing light bulbs with more energy efficient ones, turning off lights and appliances when not in use, packing lunches into reusable containers, opening windows on nice days instead of running the air or heat, using recycled computer paper and using reusable grocery bags are a few more steps I take to go green within my household. While these are all great starts, I feel like I can take this a step further and incorporate it into my future classroom.
II
What I wanted to find out with my research was what could I do in my classroom to go green. Immediately recycling came to mind but I began thinking that there are probably a lot of other ways to go green besides recycling, and I wanted to know what they were. I wanted to find things that not only could be done inside the classroom...
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Works Cited
Furger, Robert. “Taking It to the Class: Green Projects for the Classroom.” The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Last updated October 2, 2007. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www.edutopia.org/environmentally-conscious-lesson-ideas.
“Idle Free Schools.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated March 16, 2014. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www2.epa.gov/region8/idle-free-schools.
Pack, Thomas. “We’ve Gone Green.” Jefferson County Public Schools Parent Connection. April 2009. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/pubs/parentconnection/Archive/Apr09/Features.shtml.
“Waste Collection vs Single Stream Recycling”. Jefferson County Public Schools, Safety, Environmental and Housekeeping Services. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/departments/safetyenvirohouse/environmental/recycle.html.
This paper will present an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) of a proposed construction project of a new recycling center in a rural area. The proposed project is to be built in a nonattainment area. The EIS will address land-use and development, social and neighborhood effects, economic factors, air quality, noise, and water resources as it relates to the proposed project. Included in the process will be three alternatives as well as a no build alternative. The Environmental Impact Statement will provide a detailed scoping of the project along with the alternatives that will ensure all potential impacts are addressed prior to project approval.
Shawn Holton is trying to persuade his audience that colleges should go green. The author has a good variety of people to present this topic to. His audience consists of college students, teachers, environmentalist, parents, high school students, companies, and several more. When talking to this audience, the tone of the essay stays informative and well balanced. Throughout the essay, the author provides quotes and statistic from several sources.
Madrigal, Alex. Powering the Dream, The History and Promise of Green Technology. New York: Da Capo Press, 2011.
The old Native American proverb that states, “We do not inherit the land from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” really makes me think about my lifestyle and how it is benefiting the Earth. Being sustainable not only means to take care of the planet for my generation but also for future generations. It is my job to care for the planet as best as I can and to help pass on these good habits to my children. The best ways that I can help my environment are composting uneaten food and old vegetables, donating or reusing old clothes, and recycling plastic and paper products.
In conclusion, the impact I personally have on the planet has surprised me. My personal ecological footprint is much larger than I expected. However, there are measures I can take to drop my current consumption rate, such as altering my recycling choices, making better purchasing decisions, and adopting the reduce, reuse, and recycle concept throughout my household. By altering my habits and consumption rate, I can affect my local community tremendously in a positive way for the planet Earth.
The Pre-K and Kindergarten class studied habitats of various animals and insects. They were given examples and tough how the animals made their homes. The students built a bird house as their project and as something to take home to remind them of what they learned. Finally they went on a field trip to Legoland where they explored and built “habitats” for their families and the Lego people. The first and second grade class learned about marine life and the ocean. They built shoe box dioramas of coral reefs and created art projects depicting sea life as well as learning new facts about the ocean. The students got to go to the Aquarium for their field trip. Finally the third and fourth graders studied the rain forests and their ecosystems. The students built rainforest models and terrariums along with small group discussions on different ideas human intervention and conservation. They finished their week at the zoo where they studied different rainforest inhabitants in
I think that learning about the environment starting at a young age gives children the chance to discover and critically evaluate the world they live in. This is an important thing to teach children early on, which I believe is becoming a more prevalent topic at younger ages. I know I did not read most of the books I found for this project until now. I did not really have a strong environmental introduction until I reached high school which is another reason I picked this topic. Imagine if these books have an impact on children, and that these children want to start making small changes in their own homes and neighborhoods. I realize that this can be a hard thing for children to do, which is why I think it is so important for children to learn about from their pare...
I strongly agree with Pope Francis that if we teach younger generations not to be wasteful and show them how to be resourceful, then it won’t be such a struggle in the future. "Education in environmental responsibility can encourage ways of acting which directly and significantly affect the world around us, such as avoiding the use of plastic and paper, reducing water consumption, separating refuse, cooking only what can reasonably be consumed, showing care for other living beings, using public transport or car-pooling, planting trees, turning off unnecessary lights, or any number of other practices.” (211). There are so many new ways to help reduce our use of natural resources that if from a young age we are taught these methods then we could help save our planet. “All of these reflect a generous and worthy creativity which brings out the best in human beings. Reusing something instead of immediately discarding it, when done for the right reasons, can be an act of love which expresses our own dignity.” (211). Again, I agree with the Pope that recycling and reusing makes you feel good because you are making an active contribution to reduce climate
One of my personal goals for the project was to learn as much as I could about the sustainability issue facing us. I did this by participating in all of the projects that were done throughout the semester. The main project that occurred during the semester was the personal sustainability goals that we each set for ourselves. While doing the actions that we pledged to do, we learned different things about sustainability that we never knew before. One of the things that I learned was that, at Clemson, it is hard for students who want to recycle to be able to recycle. There are not the necessary facilities nearby our student housing to place our recyclables. I also learned that some actions that should be done to be sustainable are hard to do in the society that we live in. One of these activities that we do is the needless driving that Americans do in general. Since we live in a moving society, it is sometimes hard to do. An easy thing that everyone can do is to recycle some of his or her wastes. This can be done for most people at little or no extra effort than just throwing your trash away.
In conclusion, going green in the workplace is catchy new trend. Choosing to go verdant can be a grueling task and one that is confronted with some unique pros and cons. Although making green choices come at a slightly higher price, the rewards that are earned more than cover these costs. When a company chooses wisely going green can not only help the environment, and reduce the carbon foot-print the company makes but it can also prove to be a very smart business decision that can be financially gratifying.
Attention Getter: Most of the people present here today probably recycle; some more than others. And probably, most people assume that they are saving natural resources and helping the environment. However, this is not always true.
Don’t you want the trash cleaned up to enjoy nature? Don’t you want the water clean for you to drink? And don’t you want to see the skies clear and blue all the time? If we don’t act now, there might not be a world to save. Go green for the sake of the future.
The future, it seems so far off; depending on one’s perspective, it is a week, a month or years. The future, from an environmental perspective is now. Changing behaviour in the present will set the world up for a better future. Understanding sustainability and what it means to be eco-literate is seemingly hard for some, which begs the question, when should ecologising education begin? This essay aims to summarise the extent of educating for a sustainable future and analyse how relevant it is. The concept of ecological literacy is explored along with its benefits and limitations. This essay was written from the viewpoint that everyone has a role in moving towards sustainability, beginning as early as early childhood.
Recycling is an important asset to the world “going green”, (keeping the environment healthy), project people have been working on for at least a decade. Over the years the environment has suffered immensely because we humans haven’t done what is needed to make sure that our planet can flourish and evolve into its full potential. When we drive down the roads, or walk on the streets, or even relax in our own yards, we don’t think about the paper wrapper we just threw out the window, or the bottle we left on the park bench or the napkins we let fly off our table and were too lazy to pick up. A good percentage of the waste on our planet is due to exactly that. LAZINESS. Humans have this mind set that if they don’t want to do it, and they can get away with it, then usually they aren't going to do it. Plain and simple, people are just lazy. Basically, if everyone would just pick up after themselves, half of the worlds pollution and filth would be taken care of. The way to do this in a beneficial manner is simply by recycling.
The concept of “going green” is a necessity for the future because “our children deserve cities as beautiful as they are”. Works Cited Russell, Lauren. A. Web. " An Evaluation of Municipal Recycling Programs."