Sierra Club Names Boston University as top 50 Green Schools » Sustainability » Boston University Again, DePaul makes the list. In my mind, the Sierra Club list is official. Click on the questionnaire to get a list of questions you can ask on college tours with your teen. This could be adapted to secondary schools as well.
Michele Obama is the star of this video (check out her chic flower pin), which highlights the signing of the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act. Allows more funding for healthier lunches, better nutritional information for parents on lunch foods, better quality ingredients, more fruits, vegetables and whole grains. local food options and will encourage school gardens. Is this really happening? It's happening - the Greening of America! Good ole common sense is ruling the day again. Perhaps now, with healthier food, our kids can move up to 24th place in academic performance among our 30 industrialized nation peers. Ya yuh!
Man, Thursday will be the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, and I have no exciting earthy green events planned. Bummer. I will be driving to Columbus, Ohio to attend a conference of school business officials. Next year, I must remember to take this day off. The conference won't be so bad, as a member of our local USGBC Green Schools Action Circle, I can check out the green vendor booths (there will be several) and ask the school treasurers about their energy efficiency plans. I will also enjoy seeing some of my clients from Northeast Ohio out of their offices for a change. In Ohio, all new public school buildings must be LEED certified, but there is a need for information about green curriculum and financing sources, so I will ask them about their plans in those areas. Anyway, back to Earth Day. Other than eat some raw food and develop some questions for my upcoming green biz panel at the Women's Summit, I think, I might have to sit this Earth Day out. Saturday is taken as I will be attending an African American Philanthropy Summit and Sunday is gone as, I will be attending my initiation into Jack and Jill of America. So I will have to live vicariously through your Earth Day experiences. What are your plans?
This is my beloved old high school, Collinwood (Go Railroaders!). The 90+ year old building sits on eight acres of real estate, smack dab in the middle of a busy, high traffic urban neighborhood. I used to love to sit on the silver painted barriers featured here, under the shading of the trees. But isn't this a huge waste of green spaces? Grass, and a few typical shrubs. As a gardner, I turn up my nose to such lack of inspiration. Humpfh! The trees on the property save the day. I chose this site as my sustainable re-do project in the design class I took recently. I'm going to post more photos of the site as it exists and then I will post my site plan for the sustainable do-over and then we will learn more about an exciting educational concept called Power of Place based education and what we can do to encourage our school districts to adopt this style of curriculum. I sit on a green schools action circle at Cleveland chapter of the U S Green Building Council and I am taking on the Power of Place based section and green financing section of our toolkit. Today Cleveland...tomorrow, the world! LOL!
