While it's certainly worthwhile to use Earth Day to help students understand the importance of “going green,” it’s also crucial to encourage students to be environmentally conscious throughout the year. In this post, I will share a variety of projects and activities that you can implement in your own school to become an official “green school” . I hope you can use these ideas to help your school go green, but I am also looking forward to reading your comments and seeing how schools around the world are helping to save our planet.
Participate in International Walk to School DayI
International walk to school day and bike to school day promotes a healthy lifestyle and encourages students and parents to think about the effects that cars have on the environment. On this day, all students pledge to walk or ride their bike to school.this is a very realistic goal for our students. However, even if most students at your school take a bus or are driven by a parent, students can still be dropped off close to the school and walk the last half mile. The goal is for students and parents to realize that replacing car trips to school with walking or bicycling can help reduce air pollution.You can incorporate this activity into your curriculum by asking your students to explore the question: “What impact does car transportation have on the local environment?”
Start a Student-Run Recycling Club
Each classroom, copy room, and office has at least one recycling bin, and there are bins in the gym, music room, art room, cafeteria, and media center. To make students active participants in the recycling process, you can start recycling club . During lunch each day, recycling club members will be assigned to collect and empty the recycling bins in specific rooms. Through the use of posters, word-of-mouth, and “commercials” on televised morning announcements, the students in this club should be aware of what materials can and cannot be recycled.
Recycle Newspapers & Magazines to Create Fabulous Art Projects
Another way to support your school’s “going green” effort is to get your art teacher involved.
planned some neat projects using entirely recycled materials .student can make musical rumba shakers from drinkable yogurt containers . you can advice the students to make creative things like cityscapes . they can reuse the magazines for an art project instead of using brand new construction paper . these type of activity helping to reduce the amount of paper being used for recycled . which save energy
Adopt an Endangered Animal
raised enough money to purchase the animals
raise enough money to adopt an endangered animals from the zoo. different classes they can raise the money by collecting one coin from different students and once collection is made enough to buy a animal , purchase a new animal bu contacting your local zoo. student can choose the name for the animals .
Host a Solar Cookout
Motivate the people parents to create solar powered "oven" can make out of cardboard boxes , aluminum foil, and some rocks and sticks . make a proper event and publicized this event through social media explaining the idea and the process behind the solar cookout.
ask the student to construct the birdhouses as a school project. create the bird house around the playground and created a birdhouse habitat around our playground. The birdhouses provide nesting space in the birds’ increasingly threatened habitat. An increased bird population is not only pleasant for the eyes and ears, but is also important to our ecosystem. Birds scavenge wastes, pollinate plants, and search for food in the garden. They help our garden habitat by eating greenflies, caterpillars, and snails: a huge benefit for the organic gardener.
Go Paperless
Try to reduce the paper. Increase the usage of resources by going paperless. replace newspaper with e-newsletter via email bluster, start using the email blast to disseminate other information to parents, including field trip information, fan-outs, PTO meeting updates, volunteer requests, etc., saving even more paper. Also, when it is necessary to send home a hard copy of a note, only the youngest students or only one student of a family gets a copy.
Take an Environmentally Informative Field Trip
Field trips are another great way to help your students become more environmentally conscious.
Alternative Energy Plant:
If you have an alternative energy plant near your school, take a trip to learn about renewable resources. In 2009, renewable energy, from sources like the sun, wind, and water, only provided about eight percent of the energy used in the United States. However, the use of renewable fuels has begun to increase in recent years due to the high price of oil and natural gas. Visit Energy Kids to read more about renewable energy and find games, activities, and lesson plans to supplement your curriculum.
Local Landfill:
If your students think that trash just disappears, then it's time for a trip to a landfill. While students are plugging their noses, teachers can point out all the items in the landfill that don't have to be there — cardboard, newspapers, old food, perfectly good-looking furniture, old computers, etc. Explain how everything gets crushed down and squished together, so that even things that would normally decompose, like food, have a hard time decomposing. If you are like me and are not ready to take an actual field trip to a landfill, you can find many videos about how landfills work by doing a Google search.
Recycling Center:
For a similar (and slightly less stinky) field trip, take your class on a tour of a local recycling center. Students can see firsthand how items are separated and sent off on different conveyor belts. They learn how plastics will be turned into park benches and new decks and how paper will be shredded, mashed, and processed into new paper. Alternatively, take your class on a photo tour that shows where trash goes after it leaves the house.
Organic Farm:
Most students do not grow any vegetables at home and do not raise their own animals, so going to a farm is a real eye-opener. They can see where the eggs really come from, and that it's not the grocery store. Workers at the farm can show them how the carrots grow underground, and are pulled up, cleaned, and cut up. Most farms also have a u-pick-fruit area where students can pick blueberries, strawberries, or blackberries.
Reasons to Go Green
Going green is a lifestyle change targeted at being consciously aware of the surrounding environment and how things we do affect that environment. According to "Going Green Facts" from FOX43TV.com, if American households went online to view and pay their bills, over 16 million trees would be saved. Another benefit to going green is the impact it can have on your health. From the foods we eat to the air we breathe, going green can help keep us healthy and improve our quality of life.
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