National Green Week is an annual campaign, started by the Green Education Foundation (GEF), that kicks off during the first week in February and lasts through the end of April. Schools and groups are encouraged to take this opportunity to spend time with students discussing sustainability topics and exploring ways they can make a difference. Participants select one of GEF's six sustainability themes to be their Green Week theme. Each program includes free lessons, activities, audits and contests. Free sustainability themed programs include I Ride Green, Green Energy Challenge, Green Thumb Challenge, Sustainable Water Challenge, Waste Reduction Challenge and the Green Building Program. In 2013, National Green Week is sponsored by the Sprint Foundation.[1]
“By participating in National Green Week, students will learn that simple decisions such as the selection of waste-free snacks and drinks can combat monumental environmental problems,” says Victoria Waters, President and Founder, Green Education Foundation. “Children are in the best position to impact the future of our environment by developing green behaviors that become lifelong habits,” adds Waters.
Green Education Foundation (GEF) is a non-profit organization committed to creating a sustainable future through education. Sustainability education provides educators with the real-world applied learning models that connect science, technology, and math education with the broader human concerns of environmental, economic, and social systems. GEF provides curriculum and resources to K-12 students and teachers worldwide with the goal of challenging them to think holistically and critically about global environmental concerns and solutions.
National Green Week was conceived based on the results of the Fisher Green School Experiment.[1] WALPOLE, MA — June 2008 — the first ever GEF “Green School Experiment” at a special event at the Fisher Elementary School in North Walpole, Mass. The educational program was introduced to students and faculty on June 3, 2008, and challenged them to adopt simple “green” habits to reduce their classroom waste by 50 percent.
Using their new IXG Green Packs — reusable water bottle, drink thermos, snack containers, organic cotton tee shirt, reusable shopping bag, bottle brush cleaner and instructional insert — Fisher Elementary students had the opportunity to experience firsthand how much of an impact these simple habits can have. In fact, their efforts far surpassed the Experiment's goal, reducing classroom waste by an astounding 70 percent. Combined overall school waste was reduced by an equally impressive 53 percent. An additional pilot was run in December 2008, at Weymouth Search Elementary School in Weymouth Massachusetts.[2][3]
National Green Week 2009, the Green Education Foundation's enlisted 2000 schools and nearly a half a million students nationwide. Over 250,000 participated in the "Waste-Free Snacks challenge, effectively eliminating over 100,000 lbs of trash[4] including 1 million students which, according to WCVB TV, would reduce trash going to landfills by 2 million pounds for the very first National Green Week.[2] By the end of the 2009 National Green Week, a total of more than 500,000 children in 900 schools across 48 states participated to reduce waste and promote sustainability.[2][5] so we are requested to save earth
National Green Week Pilot Schools
The Fisher Green School Experiment
Students at Fisher Elementary School in Walpole, Massachusetts, conducted a trash experiment. For two weeks they collected and weighed their trash, including juice boxes and snack wrappers. The school collected 450 lbs. of trash a day. Then they received a "Green Pack", which was itself a reusable shopping bag, and included a water bottle and reusable snack containers. They were able to reduce their trash by 70% using these "Green Packs"[6] Teacher Lisa Grasso's third grade class in particular recorded less than an ounce of trash in 2 weeks.[6]
The William Seach Green Week
Like the students at Fisher Elementary, students at William Search Elementary in Weymouth, Massachusetts, weighed their trash. The school of 370 students collected 25lbs. of trash a day. After receiving green packs, they reduced their trash by 86% to 3.4lbs. of trash a day.[2] Town employees were also encouraged to reduce waste by Weymouth Mayor Sue Kay. "That brings the parents into it. They kind of get into it with creating the lunches. And if we show our employees that the children are participating, then why can't we do it also?"[2]
Garbology is the study of modern refuse and trash as well as the use of trash cans, compactors and various types of trash can liners. As an academic discipline it was pioneered at the University of Arizona and long directed by William Rathje. The project started in 1973, originating from an idea of two students for a class project. It is a major source of information on the nature and changing patterns in modern refuse, and thereby, human society.
Waste hierarchy is a tool used in the evaluation of processes that protect the environment alongside resource and energy consumption from most favourable to least favourable actions. The hierarchy establishes preferred program priorities based on sustainability. To be sustainable, waste management cannot be solved only with technical end-of-pipe solutions and an integrated approach is necessary.
The Poudre School District (R-1) is a K–12 public school district in Larimer County in northern Colorado. The district operates and manages the public schools in the city of Fort Collins, as well as in the towns of Wellington, Timnath, Loveland and Windsor, and unincorporated communities of Larimer County including Laporte and Livermore. The district is one of the fastest growing in Northern Colorado, adding 400-500 students — about the size of an elementary school — each year.
Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to fulfill a different function. It should be distinguished from recycling, which is the breaking down of used items to make raw materials for the manufacture of new products. Reuse – by taking, but not reprocessing, previously used items – helps save time, money, energy and resources. In broader economic terms, it can make quality products available to people and organizations with limited means, while generating jobs and business activity that contribute to the economy.
Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustainable society. Waste minimisation involves redesigning products and processes and/or changing societal patterns of consumption and production.
TerraCycle is a private U.S.-based recycling business headquartered in Trenton, New Jersey. It primarily runs a volunteer-based recycling platform to collect non-recyclable pre-consumer and post-consumer waste on behalf of corporate donors or municipalities to turn it into raw material to be used in new products. The company licenses its name to manufacturers of roughly 200 products made using its raw material. TerraCycle also manages Loop, a consumer-products shopping service with reusable packaging.
Precycling is the practice of reducing waste by attempting to avoid bringing items which will generate waste into home or business. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also cites that precycling is the preferred method of integrated solid waste management because it cuts waste at its source and therefore trash is eliminated before it is created. According to the EPA, precycling is also characterized as a decision-making process on the behalf of the consumer because it involves making informed judgments regarding a product's waste implications. The implications that are taken into consideration by the consumer include: whether a product is reusable, durable, or repairable; made from renewable or non-renewable resources; over-packaged; and whether or not the container is reusable.
Upcycling, also known as creative reuse, is the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless, or unwanted products into new materials or products perceived to be of greater quality, such as artistic value or environmental value.
This article includes information about environmental groups and resourcesthat serve K–12 schools in the United States and internationally. The entries in this article are for broad-scope organizations that serve at least one state or similar region (Rahya_Carl10).
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero.
Green Campus Initiative (GCI), is a student organisation within the University of Cape Town. It aims to make UCT a sustainable and environmentally friendly institution. It was started towards the end of 2007 by Susan Botha, who had been working for the Namaqualand Restoration Initiative (NRI) at UCT. The initiative has its origins in the Botany Department, where Susan's work was based, but the organisation quickly grew to a campus-wide initiative. Susan is responsible for the formalisation of the GCI, including the naming of the organisation, the formation of a group on Vula, the articulation of a specific aim for the organisation, as well as the founding and co-execution of many of the first projects. These first projects included the implementation of campus-wide recycling; the organisation of UCT's first Green Week; the Building-to-Building Roadshow initiative and the promotion and implementation of carpooling. Each year a new GCI committee is elected, which includes portfolios that run the different projects. As of September 2010, the GCI has over 1500 members on Vula, of which approximately 100 are actively participating in projects.
A junk raft is a type of home-built watercraft made of plastic bottles or other recycled materials constructed by artists and community-minded groups organizing recreational flotillas, or by environmentally concerned individuals seeking to draw attention to the problem of floating debris and the need for recycling. It can also be an improvised small, functional watercraft from readily available materials.
Game day recycling is the idea that having large crowds of people in a small, concentrated space will generate great amounts of trash and products that need to be recycled. On college campuses with large stadiums, a home football game can attract up to about 110,000 people, like the University of Michigan’s stadium. However, because colleges only play a limited number of games at home each season, the recycling programs specifically for game days are usually specialized and separate from the school’s regular recycling program.
The Olympic Forest Park is a large, man-made nature park situated at the north end of the Olympic Green in Beijing. Built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the park has two parts: the southern part is oval in shape and features Aohai lake in the center, and the northern side has a mountain that gives an excellent view of this part of the city. The northern part is outside of the 5th Ring Road. The park was designed by Sasaki and implemented by the Tsinghua Landscape Design Institute.
Resource recovery is using wastes as an input material to create valuable products as new outputs. The aim is to reduce the amount of waste generated, thereby reducing the need for landfill space, and optimising the values created from waste. Resource recovery delays the need to use raw materials in the manufacturing process. Materials found in municipal solid waste, construction and demolition waste, commercial waste and industrial wastes can be used to recover resources for the manufacturing of new materials and products. Plastic, paper, aluminium, glass and metal are examples of where value can be found in waste.
Sustainability, as defined by the 1983 Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), states “development which implies meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. As sustainability gains support worldwide, universities across the United States have begun to take initiatives toward more sustainable campuses. Alongside student-run projects, drastic changes in administration, energy efficiency, food, and recycling have sprung up in Ivy League schools and liberal arts colleges alike. The American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment is an evident effort to address global climate disruption consisting of a network of colleges and universities that have made institutional commitments to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions on campus and to promote the research and educational efforts of higher education to prepare society to re-stabilize the earth's climate. Oberlin College in Ohio features the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certified music facility, while Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, has pledged that all new buildings will meet these same Gold standards. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system created by the U.S. Green Building Council. This ranking system offers an incentive for building owners to implement green design, construction, efficient operations, and eco-friendly solutions over the years. Buildings are responsible for about 40% of total carbon emissions. And so by including these green buildings, schools are decreasing carbon emissions, conserving water and energy and saving money each month. Princeton and Ohio University have both made strides toward cutting yearly carbon emissions on campus; While Florida Gulf Coast University has implemented solar energy throughout various buildings. A number of universities across the U.S. have created bicycle stations providing rentals to students and staff alike in an effort to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and automobile congestion as well. Car sharing like rechargeable Zipcars and reliable public transit have also helped incentivize more eco-friendly schools. These changes towards sustainability offer colleges moral and ethical fulfillment as well as economic and financial benefits. Likewise, these universities are responsible for training future generations in sustainable practice. By offering students these more Earth-friendly options, faculty and staff can ensure the well-being of lands and resources for generations to come.
Greenkeepers is an international, non-profit, and non-governmental service organization founded in 2009. Founded in Beijing, China, Greenkeepers is devoted to inspiring environmental awareness through local impacts within communities across the globe, including but not limited to its offices in Beijing and Fremont. Greenkeepers aspires to fundamentally change the way people see environmental work, and is renowned within local communities for its approach of leading by example - not only transforming the environment or promoting environmental awareness, but also redesigning societies' consumptions of limited resources.
Climate change education (CCE) is education that aims to address and develop effective responses to climate change. It helps learners understand the causes and consequences of climate change, prepares them to live with the impacts of climate change and empowers learners to take appropriate actions to adopt more sustainable lifestyles.
Zero Waste Week is an environmental campaign to reduce landfill waste, and takes place annually during the first full week in September. It is a non-commercial grass-roots campaign to demonstrate means and methods to reduce waste, foster community support and bring awareness to the increasing problem of environmental waste and pollution.
Sustainable film production is the concept of film production with particular concern for environmental, economic, and social issues. Sustainability in film production incorporates socially and environmentally responsible decision making into the pre-production and production of the film. It involves sustainable development principles at all levels of filmmaking and is best accomplished in a unified manner with collaboration and cooperation from all departments and/or participants in making the film. The sustainability of the film production should start at the launch of the project, and involve all of the key stakeholders including the director, film producer, production or costume designer, cast, and crew.
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