7 STEPS TO A GREEN SCHOOL
GREEN SCHOOL GROUNDS The evidence is in: A green school ground provides a wide range of benefits for children, from an enhanced learning
environment and an increase in physical activity to reduced bullying, positive community engagement and a boost to emotional
well-being. Green school grounds balance fields and open space with
variations in topography, ground surface and vegetation. They combine built and natural features with a wide range of elements
to provide students with different looks, sensory experiences and play opportunities in every season. Start your school ground greening project today! TOYOTA
PLAYGROUND GREEN NATURAL DESIGN SPACE GRANTS
HERE'S TO A GREEN, CLEAN, GREAT TEAM .
. . .PRODUCTIVE SCHOOL YEAR!
May your students be angels and be your teacher! If
you are a teacher with a project for the new school year and need financial support this is a good place to start:
INTERESTING NEW RESOURCES:
Best wishes for a great green year!
SEW IT FORWARD GRANTS FOR FOOD GARDENS
Awards and Recognition for Schools and Youth Gardens:
Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools: Apply for a Salad Bar Grant
Healthy School Lunches: Offers Golden Carrot Award for outstanding school
food service professionals
Chef’s Move to Schools: Get a culinary demo kit for your school
Recipe for Healthy Kids Challenge: Win $12,000 in prizes
National Education Association Grants & Awards
The National Gardening Association - Your school or organization must
plan a gardening program with 15 kids between the ages of 3 and 18. Click on the links below for more information.
Mantis Award Deadline: March
The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation http://www.ftpf.org/
Lowe's Toolbox for Education Grants
Grant cycle closes October 12
Searching for funding for your outdoor classroom,
schoolyard garden, or school greening project? Lowe's will donate $5 million to public schools and public school parent teacher
groups at more than 1,000 different public schools per school year. The Fall 2012 grant cycle will open mid-July and close
October 12, 2012.
YSA Grants Each year, Youth Service America supports youth-led service with over $1 million
in YSA Grants. Learn more about 5 YSA Grants programs for community organizations and K-12 schools worth more than $450,000
now accepting applications. Deadlines range from July 1 to July 31.
Project WET Project WET (Water Education for Teachers) is an award-winning, nonprofit water
education program and publisher. The program facilitates and promotes awareness, appreciation, knowledge, and stewardship
of water resources through the dissemination of classroom-ready teaching aids and the establishment of internationally sponsored
Project WET programs. Project Learning Tree Project Learning Tree® is an award winning, multi-disciplinary environmental education program
for educators and students in Pre K-12. PLT, a program of the American Forest Foundation, is one of the most widely used environmental
education programs in the United States and abroad. Project Learning Tree has GreenWorks! grants of up to $3,000 available to schools and youth organizations for environmental service-learning
I took their class and it was well worth it. Project Learning Tree advances environmental literacy and promotes stewardship
through excellence in environmental education, professional development, and curriculum resources that use trees and forests
as windows on the world
Provides educators with the tools, training and resources
they need to bring the environment into their classrooms, and their students into the environment.
There are activities to use with children to help them get outdoors to explore nature and learn about
The benefits to becoming a PLT Green School often include:
Significant cost savings
student learning, particularly in science and math
Enhanced student leadership skills
Recognition within the wider
community for your school’s accomplishments
A solid foundation of environmental stewardship
A healthier school
Thoughts on School fundraising
Consider a plan that doesn't cost parents a penny: More than
350 million printer cartridges are thrown away and 35 million cell phones are replaced and discarded annually. Instead, recycle
e-waste for cash, reducing the volume of waste in landfills while benefiting your school.
Cartridges for Kids: Pays schools and non-profit organizations cash for empty laser and inkjet cartridges, used cell phones,
laptops, PDAs, GPS devices and iPods. Earthtone Solutions and Funding Factory have similar e-waste recycling fundraising programs. Office Depot's free program, "Recycling Rules" accepts all brands of ink, toner and small electronics in exchange for Office Depot Gift Cards to be used for free
school or classroom supplies.
Terracycle pays students and schools to collect empty juice packs and wrappers. Terracycle makes bags, pencil boxes,
and other items out of the packaging, which is not generally accepted in standard recycling programs. Terracycle was highlighted
in our article focusing on reducing waste.
Sell Eco-Friendly Products & Services: The following
organizations will help you raise money for your school by selling eco-friendly products, with up to 40% of profits going
to the school.
Eco Sprouts Fundraising: Eco-friendly t-shirts
Equal Exchange: Organic & fair trade foods & gifts
Go Green Fundraising: various eco-friendly products
Greenraising: various eco-friendly products
KORU Fundraising: various eco-friendly products
One Small Step: Reusable Lunchware: waste free lunch supplies
inlu.com: a site that lets you send electronic invitations and organize a gift -- in this case, a gift to your school.
Sample parent association invitation/fundraiser:
Participation is usually free, and most companies accept unsold inventory so you're not stuck with leftovers.
Frequently, there are no up-front costs to the school. Some, like Equal Exchange, even offer curriculum resources so kids (and parents and teachers) can learn about the positive ripple effects of their
Reading Resources: The Hidden Life of Trees Peter WohllebenLast Child in the Woods Richard Louv The Absorbent Mind Maria MontessoriExploring Nature With Your Child Dorothy
ShuttlesworthThe Zoo Garden Chris HastingsSeeds of Change Judy Mannes and Marsha
RehnsGardening Wizardry For Kids Patricia KitePlay and Find Out About Nature
Janice VanCleaveSense-Abilities Michelle O’Brien-PalmerNature Activities for Early Childhood
Janet Nickelsburg50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth Natural Resources Defense CouncilSeeds and Weeds Joan
WestleyFood and Nutrition for Every Kid Janice VanCleave
THIS IS A LIST OF EDUCATIONAL WEBSITES:
1. ALISON – over 60 million lessons and records 1.2 million unique visitors per month
2. COURSERA – Educational website that works with universities to get their courses on the Internet, free for you to use.
Learn from over 542 courses.
3. The University of Reddit – The free university of Reddit.
4. UDACITY – Advance your education and career through project-based online classes, mainly focused around computer, data
science and mathematics.
5. MIT Open CourseWare – Free access to quite a few MIT courses that are on par with what you’d expect from MIT.
6. Open Culture – Compendium of free learning resources, including courses, textbooks, and videos/films.
7. No Excuse List – Huge list of websites to learn from.
8. Open YALE Courses – Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished
teachers and scholars at Yale University All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video,
audio, and text transcript formats. Registration is not required.
9. Khan Academy – Watch thousands of micro-lectures on topics ranging from history and medicine to chemistry and computer science.
10. Zooniverse – Take part in a huge variety of interesting studies of nature, science, and culture.
11. TUFTS Open CourseWare – Tufts OpenCourseWare is part of a new educational movement initiated by MIT that provides free access to course
content for everyone online. Tufts’ course offerings demonstrate the University’s strength in the life sciences
in addition to its multidisciplinary approach, international perspective and underlying ethic of service to its local, national
and international communities.
12. How Stuff Works? – More scientific lessons and explanations than you could sort through in an entire year.
13. Harvard Medical School Open Courseware The mission of the Harvard Medical School Open Courseware
Initiative is to exchange knowledge from the Harvard community of scholars to other academic institutions, prospective students,
and the general public.
14. VideoLectures.NET – the title says it all – amazing video lectures on many topics.
15. TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
16. Shodor – A non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the advancement of science and math education,
through modeling and simulation technologies. Instructional resources, software, interactive lessons, explorations and information
about workshops for students, teachers on mathematics and science. Check Shodor Interactive – a collection of
interactive math, geometry, fractal, probability, algebra and statistics activities.
17. Udemy FREE Courses – hundreds of experts teach on Udemy every month including New York Times best-selling authors, CEOs, Ivy League
professionals and celebrity instructors. Courses include video, live lectures and tools to help teachers interact with students
and track their progress. There are many free courses that can teach you business, law, programming, design, mathematics,
science, photography, yoga and many more.
18. Maths & Science – Courses, tests and learning materials about mathematics and science for students from 1 to 12 grade.
19. edX.org – Free courses designed specifically for interactive study via the web, provided by MIT, Harvard, Barkley, Georgetown,
Boston University, University of Washington, Karolinska Institute, Kyoto University and many more.
20. iTunes U – Apple’s free app that gives students mobile access to many courses. It offers many free video courses,
books, presentations and audio lectures.
21. Liberty Classroom – Owned by bestselling author Tom Woods. Offers some free courses in history and economics, but at the price of
one movie ticket a month you can gain access to a lot of useful information. Not completely free, but totally worth it…
22. Drawspace – Hundreds of free drawing lessons.
23. Codeacademy – Easy way to learn how to code. It’s interactive, fun and you can do it with your friends.
24. Duke U – Duke offers variety of free courses on iTunesU.
25. Scitable – A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetic, the study of evolution,
variation and the rich complexity of living organisms.
26. My own business – Offers free online business administration course that would be beneficial to new managers and to anyone who
is interested in starting a business.
27. Kutztown University’s free courses – The Kutztown University of Pennsylvania’s Small Business Development Center offers more than 80 free business
courses online. Kutztown’s courses are individualized and self-paced. Many of the courses feature high-end graphics,
interactive case studies and audio streams.
28. Open Learn – Gives you free access to Open University course materials.
29. Free Computer Books – Free computer, mathematics, technical books and lecture notes.
30. Academic Earth – Free video lectures from the world’s top scholars.31. American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself
sign language online.
32. BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
33. unplugthetv – Randomly selects an educational video for you to watch.
34. Lifehacker – Learn to hack life! Tips and tricks for improving all areas of your life.
35. JustinGuitar – Hundreds of free guitar lessons as well as some basic music theory.
36. DuoLingo – Learn a new language for free while helping to translate the web.
37. Layers Magazine – Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Flash, Premiere Pro, In Design and After Effects tutorials.
38. Creative Flow – list of OVER 950 Photoshop tutorials to keep your skillset up to date.
39. Open2study – Open2Study delivers free, high-quality education online. You can study subjects with real value, and in just
four weeks you can learn something new, explore the next step in your career, challenge yourself or simply satisfy your curiosity.
These subjects are provided by leading Australian institutions, and are taught by academics and leading industry professionals
who love to teach. All you need is an internet connection and the desire to study.
40. OEDb – Choose from over 10,000 free online classes
also watch free documentaries here.
Please leave a comment with any other good links that you
wish to be added to the list, let’s get together, make the ultimate educational list and help others beat the system