I recently read about a movement for creating green schools from the ground up or retrofiting older schools to be more Green. Since my daughter’s elementary school was built in 1929 (and seems to need a retrofit anyways!), I find the movement interesting, particularly since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 will give school districts access to federal funding to modernize and green their schools. The program, A Green Classroom Toolbox, is lead by Ihab M.K. Elzeyadi, a professor of architecture at the University of Oregon.
Why Green your School? This short video by Elzeyadi, founder of A Green Classroom Toolbox, gives some great ideas:
The Green Classroom Toolbox contains a checklist of 20 best practices–the biggest “bang for the buck” in where to spend the money to go more green in your school. The list was created from a series of meetings in various cities in Oregon, involving 24 representatives of K-12 schools, architects, engineers, and facility managers. In addition to the checklist, the toolbox has a prioritization guide providing comparative analyses and a guide that links best practices to findings on health and performance. This sounds great for a given school that would have set budget in their green movement, where they need help in figuring out the best choices to make in retrofiting their school to be more green.
If you are interested, this second video has a bit more information on the Green Classroom Toolbox:
Any Greening going on in your school? If so please share your ideas, too!
