Image credit: Colby College, http://www.flickr.com/photos/72098626@N00/2100990080

It’s hard to believe, but it won’t be long before the kiddos are zipping their backpacks and heading back to school. If you or your son or daughter is in high school, have you given any thought to college majors? There are all kinds of schools out there that offer all kinds of degrees, but for someone who wants to take eco-friendliness into a career, the time is now to start looking at what colleges offer the best environmental studies programs.

Fiske Guides are a popular resource for researching the schools that offer the best programs for what you want to do with your career. Here are 10 environmental studies programs in the United States that should be on your radar, according to the Fiske Guides: Read more…

Even though Massachusetts public schools are on February break this week, another teacher friend and I were discussing our respective Green Teams and just how into it the kids are. So many kids want to take responsibility for their own planet that it warms even my jaded little teacher heart. At the beginning of this year, for example, the Green Team installed three different recycling bins in the cafeteria for cans and plastic bottles, one for each grade (sixth, seventh, and eighth). Each week, the grade that recycles the most cans gets to play music during their lunch period and students get to enter to be the DJ for their lunch period. They call it Tunes at Noon and it’s been a huge success.

Just this week I heard about another program that not only lets the kids have that feeling of responsibility, but also makes money for the school. NSTAR Energy has been promoting their Change A Light, Change The World Fundraiser, and it couldn’t be easier. NSTAR provides energy-efficient bulbs at no cost, and students sell them as a fundraiser. Not only does the school get 100% of the proceeds, but students are also convincing people to switch to energy-efficient bulbs.

According to the NSTAR website, “The program includes of a kick-off event, educating students on energy-saving light bulbs and energy conservation. The event will also provide the students with an overview of the fundraising program, as well as explain the benefits of saving energy and how the money earned can benefit your school. The students are then encouraged to spread the word on energy conservation and sell the energy-efficient light bulbs provided by NSTAR.” I think the program sounds pretty amazing, especially for school districts that are less affluent and have less access to education on energy efficiency.

Next week I plan on emailing NSTAR’s contact person to find out more about this program and see if my school’s Green Team would be interested in participating. For right now though, I think I’ll just enjoy my week-long vacation from the darling kidlets.

It’s that time of year again! You know, the time of year when you start to have an anxiety attack every time you think about how close it is to the holidays and how little shopping you’ve actually done. Over the past few weeks I’ve been reading increasingly frantic blog posts and tweets from people wondering what to get their kid’s teacher or daycare provider. And as a teacher myself, I am here to fill you in on the gifts that do not go immediately into the trash (I’m looking at you, Coca-Cola tree ornament!) or contribute directly to the tightening of our jeans (that means you, delicious homemade baked goods!).

There are so many great eco-friendly gifts available now that it’s really easy to choose something fun, practical, and green. The CupKozy is a great gift for the coffee and tea drinking teachers out there. Because there is nothing worse than waking up at 5:30 a.m. and braving the nasty weather without a warm beverage to escort you into your classroom. Feeling cheap just getting this? Throw in a gift card to your local coffee shop and your kid’s teacher will love you for life.

Next up, these super cute rhino erasers from Priscilla Woolworths. Who doesn’t love having wildlife to erase errant pencil marks throughout the day? Plus they also come in polar bear and gorilla shapes, and I know I would personally love to have that trio sitting on my desk.

Feel like doing it up with something homemade? As a library teacher, I think these Book Page Wreaths are a fantastic idea and the personal touch would make receiving one extra special. Especially if someone used old school Nancy Drew books to make it!

Maybe you don’t know this about schools, but they are constantly running out of things like paper towels for the faculty bathroom. I’ve taken to bringing in dish towels with me so that I can wash my hands without then having to wipe my hands on my skirt on the way back into class. I would love to get some super cute new towels like this Velo Tea Towel from Branch. Read more…

If your child is like millions of other students, they ride that big yellow school bus to and from school every day. And it’s helpful, right? At the very least it’s a cheaper and more effective mode of transportation than hiring a chauffeur to bring your kid home. Although, now that I think of it, I kind of wish my parents had hired a Bentley complete with a jaunty-hat driver to wheel me around my tiny little New Hampshire town when I was growing up. It probably would have fit my personality better than the indignity of being squashed into that set with the wheel well sticking up into it.

Anyway, the yellow school bus is a time-honored tradition for school children everywhere and it seems to be the best way to get hoards of kids places all at once. But what about when your child is not on the bus? Back when I was in middle school I know the school buses sat idling in the driveway for up to a half hour, while the bus drivers sat smoking, chatting, and waiting for the last bell of the day to release the kidlets into the wild. Nowadays there’s not so much smoking going on, but still the noxious fumes are being emitted from the school buses exhaust pipes as they sit parked but running.

At my school, the Green Team pondered this problem for a while before asking the bus company to stop the idling. There were a few factors to consider: turning the heat on at an appropriate time in the cold winter months, allowing time for the older buses to warm up, etc. But they did agree to keep it to a minimum and to stop the idling all together while parked in the school driveway.

It was especially easy to get the bus companies to agree to this when we figured out how much they could save in costs and fuel. Using the EPA’s Fuel Saving Calculator, we presented the bus company with these stats: with 10 buses, if we cut idling time by 15 minutes a day, we would be saving them 225 gallons of fuel and $900 per year. Crazy, right? And pretty effective in business terms, I might add. In addition, my school district just this year had all their buses retrofitted for biodiesel, which should also help them both save money and produce less exhaust.

So try it out in your school district. It might seem like a small thing, but the more districts we can get to agree to this, the less toxicity we are releasing into the atmosphere.

Or, you know, hire that Bentley. Either way.

Ah, school days. Hands down, the best part about going back to school every year is,  stocking up on new school supplies. Even now, as a thirty year old librarian, the look of freshly sharpened pencils and crisp, clean notebook paper gives me shivers of anticipation. It’s fall! It’s time to learn things! And we are going to do it in style.

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Last Spring, as school was winding down and teachers enthusiastically high-fived each other while packing up for the summer, I noticed something in the hallway trash cans. Handful after handful of broken, used, and stubby crayons were being thrown away by both students and staff. I made a mental note to myself, “Figure out how to use old crayons at school to prevent so much waste,” then continued on with my own high-fiving summer packing.

A few months have gone by since then and I have to admit, broken crayons have not crossed my mind all summer. But, when the realization hit me last week that school was starting, oh, how about TODAY, I decided that it was time to do something with my son’s broken crayons that I had been saving.

I decided to make new crayons – a simple concept – one of the 3 Rs! I began looking online for ideas and directions and came across all sorts of websites that directed readers to pour the melted wax into plastic candy molds so that the crayons would end up shaped like Sponge Bob or Hannah Montana. “Great idea!” I thought to myself, as I imagined years of giving really fun crayons to children at birthday parties, or using them as classroom party favors in lieu of cupcakes (promoting recycling and combating tooth decay!).

However, I then realized that since I have never made molded candy before, I didn’t own any plastic candy molds. Was it really green for me to go out and buy new ones? I decided that I would use a muffin tin and an old ice cube tray to make the crayons so that no new purchases would have to be made. Read more…

When you were in school, how many times did you end the year with no paper left in your notebook, no pencil left to your pencil, and no ink left in your pens and markers?  How many times did you chuck half-used erasers, and slightly nubby pencils in favor of shiny new ones when it was time to go back to school?

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There has to be a middle ground.

Waste-free lunches are a great way to be green, but what if you don’t have the time or kitchen skills to put together a completely waste-free, homemade lunch for your kids?  Or what if your kids are picky eaters, or are just begging for additions to their lunch that are more like what their friends are eating.

As someone who brought some pretty weird natural foods to school in her lunch box, and was ridiculed for them (In second grade, a kid in my class told the teacher I was eating puke at snack time.  It was hummus.), I can certainly appreciate that a little conventional looking pre-packaged food can go a long way in boosting a kid’s ego at lunch.  But it doesn’t have to be make-you-own or just cave in and send your kids to school with snack cakes full of partially hydrogenated oils and “fruit” snacks in neon colors.  There’s a good middle ground.

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Packing school lunches can be a mess of foil, baggies, and plastic wrap. When lunch is over, there’s a small mountain of garbage left behind. Read more…

iwalk, is an International Walk to School to raise awareness for safer and improved streets, healthier habits and cleaner air. It started in 1994 in Hertfordshire County in Great Britain with just a few schools. Last year, millions of children, parents, and community leaders walked to school in 42 different countries. Read more…