1. Spread the Word
Organize a field trip for your class to see The 11th Hour. Ask a teacher to schedule a follow-up discussion about the current state of the environment and the impact of the film on your class.

2. Take A Challenge
Mobilize your Science classmates to take on an environmental challenge. It brings together Science, Math and Engineering in a way that’s fun for students of various levels technical interest.

The Campus Climate Challenge is a project of more than 30 leading youth organizations throughout the U.S. and Canada. The Challenge leverages the power of young people to organize on college campuses and high schools across Canada and the U.S. to win 100% Clean Energy policies at their schools. The Challenge is growing a generation-wide movement to stop global warming, by reducing the pollution from our high schools and colleges down to zero, and leading our society to a clean energy future. Start a group at your school today.

For a decade, the nationally recognized EV Challenge has been introducing students and the communities they live in to the important environmental, energy and economic issues associated with alternative transportation fuels. Each year thousands of high school students experience a unique opportunity to design and convert gasoline vehicles to electric power, while middle school students design and build model solar racecars. The EV Challenge is looking for new partners: individuals, schools, businesses and organizations interested in advancing the understanding of issues associated with clean fuel technologies. If you or your group believes alternative fuel education is important, contact EV Challenge today!

EV Challenge on You Tube

3. Green Your Cafateria
Imagine looking forward to eating at school. Go organic, fresh and local and watch the student body’s overall grades go up as the amount of frozen, canned, genetically modified and antibiotic-filled food drops.

If you don't like the food being served in your cafeteria, do something to change it! Read these guidelines on what to do, how to do it, and examples of successful initiatives underway around the country. If you can't convince your school decision makers to start buying locally grown, sustainable food, start with one or two items. Work to have milk from a local dairy served, along with the usual dairy products. Have one or two vegetables sourced from farms nearby. Sometimes starting small opens school administrators to the possibility of larger change. And over time you can work to introduce more and more wholesome, sustainable food.

Farm to School programs are popping up all over the U.S. These programs connect schools with local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities that will last a lifetime, and supporting local small farmers. Schools buy and feature farm fresh foods such as fruits and vegetables, eggs, honey, meat, and beans on their menus; incorporate nutrition-based curriculum; and provide students experiential learning opportunities through farm visits, gardening and recycling programs. Farmers have access to a new market through schools and connect to their community through participation in programs designed to educate kids about local food and sustainable agriculture. Find a Farm to School program near you. If you’re in college, initiate a Farm to College program at your school

Start your own Edible Schoolyard. The Edible Schoolyard is a non-profit program located on the campus of Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, California. The cooking and gardening program grew out of a conversation between chef and author Alice Waters, and former King Middle School Principal Neil Smith. Planning commenced in 1995 and two years later, more than an acre of asphalt parking lot had been cleared. A cover crop was planted to enrich the soil, and in 1997, the school’s unused 1930s cafeteria kitchen was refurbished to house the kitchen classroom.

4. Energize Renewably
Most schools are powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy which all have dangerous side effects like Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and toxic pollution. Renewable energy, like wind and solar, creates GHG-free energy that is clean, green, and affordable. Start and student coalition and get your school to make the switch to renewables.

Energy costs are an enormous expense for our nation's schools. To help free up more resources for education while strengthening academic learning, the Alliance's Green Schools Program engages students in creating energy-saving activities in their schools, using hands-on, real-world projects. A team of teachers, custodial staff, administrators, and students carry out the program at each school. An introductory workshop helps the teams work together to create a customized plan for teaching about energy, saving energy in school, creating school-wide energy awareness, and taking the message home and into the local community.

Throughout the 2007-08 academic year, EPA’s Green Power Partnership will track and recognize the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The Green Power Challenge is open to all U.S. colleges, universities, and conferences.

5. Rethink Waste
EPA developed the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) Tools for Schools Program to reduce exposures to indoor environmental contaminants in schools through the voluntary adoption of sound indoor air quality management practices.
Poor indoor air quality can impact the comfort and health of students and staff, which, in turn, can affect concentration, attendance, and student performance.

6. Shop Around
Purchase school supplies needs from eco-aware suppliers. From computers and printers to pens and paper clips, shopping green can literally have a ripple effect around the globe. Lobby your school to commit to purchasing Energy Star products for all new electronic purchases and making the switch to 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Electronics

EPEAT is a system to help purchasers in the public and private sectors evaluate, compare and select desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on their environmental attributes.

Office Equipment — from computers and monitors to imaging equipment, such as printers and copiers — that has earned the ENERGY STAR helps eliminate wasted energy through special energy-efficient designs. They use less energy to perform regular tasks, and when not in use, automatically enter a low-power mode.

Schools Supplies

Green Line
The Green Office

7. Build Green
Encourage your school’s administration to ensure that all new construction will be done with sustainable, non-toxic materials. Green building will greatly effect the health of the planet and the student body.

The LEED for Schools Rating System recognizes the unique nature of the design and construction of K-12 schools. Based on LEED for New Construction, it addresses issues such as classroom acoustics, master planning, mold prevention, and environmental site assessment. By addressing the uniqueness of school spaces and children’s health issues, LEED for Schools provides a unique, comprehensive tool for schools that wish to build green, with measurable results. LEED for Schools is the recognized third-party standard for high performance schools that are healthy for students, comfortable for teachers, and cost-effective. LEED for Schools gives parents, teachers and the community a “report card” for their school buildings, by verifying that schools are built healthy, efficient, and comfortable. Students will learn better, teachers will be more satisfied, and schools will run more efficiently.

A Green School, also known as a high performance school, is a community facility that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green Schools protect occupant health, provide a productive learning environment, connect students to the natural world, increase average daily attendance, reduce operating costs, improve teacher satisfaction and retention, and reduce overall impact to the environment.

8. Initiate a Recycling Center
Recycling glass, metal, plastic and paper hugely reduces the environmental impact of producing new materials.

Do you cringe every time you see a fellow student throwing out a recyclable bottle, can, or some printer paper? You can do something to prevent this from happening. Start a recycling program at your school. It might take some work, but its well worth it.

Earth 911 is the resource for recycling information in the US. Find out how and where to recycle everything from #7 plastics to laptop computers. They also have a great guide on How to Start a Recycling Program.

9. Green Transport
Present your administration with a list of resources to green your school’s transportation program.

Start a No-Idle Campaign at your School

There are 25 million reasons why it's important to reduce idling. Take the pledge...the key to reducing idling is you! Clean School Bus USA's newly launched National Idle-Reduction Campaign is a public information campaign that recognizes the important role of the school bus driver as a professional, who is responsible for the safety and security of children. The National Idle-Reduction Campaign promotes idle-reduction as an easy way to save money by saving fuel, reducing wear and tear on engines, protecting drivers' health and the health of children, and improving air quality.

Help your School Bus Fleet Switch to Biodiesel

School buses are one of the largest mass transit programs in the United States. Pollution from diesel vehicles has health implications for everyone, especially children. The use of biodiesel can reduce that threat. Because it works in any diesel engine with few or no modifications, biodiesel offers schools a relatively inexpensive option for an immediate solution to air quality concerns. As a result, several thousand school buses in the US are running on blends of biodiesel and reporting success. The National Biodiesel Board can help your school locate biodiesel fuel distributors as well as information and resources. The most sustainable fuel source is Waste Vegetable Oil or WVO; make sure to ask the biodiesel supplier if their fuel is made from WVO.

Biofuels4Schools is dedicated to:

• Improving air quality inside school buses. Promotes the initial blending of 20% Biodiesel into diesel school buses and eventually running buses on 100% Biodiesel.
• Promoting the use of waste cooking oil from restaurants processed into Biodiesel to use in school buses.
• Coordinating the communication, cooperation and support of Renderers, Biodiesel producers, Petroleum Distributors, School bus fleets, School districts and our youth to ensure a successful transition to Biodiesel.
• Providing engaging edutainment through puppet shows, and workshops for all ages to inform audiences about the benefits of using Biodiesel in school buses.

10. Join Forces
Align your school with others that are striving towards the same goals of environmental achievement.

At the Green Schools Initiative, we believe it is essential to protect children’s health – at school and in the world beyond school – and we work to catalyze and support “green” actions by kids, teachers, parents, and policymakers to eliminate toxics, use resources sustainably, create green spaces and buildings, serve healthy food, and teach stewardship.

Read GSI’s “Four Pillars of Sustainable Schools.”

The Green Ambassadors is an environmental education program that empowers youth to be agents of change in their communities and world. Through service learning, community partnerships, and cross-cultural and global exchange, the program fosters personal growth and leadership skills to help youth tackle the most critical environmental issues facing our planet.