education

The college selection process is a rigorous one. As a rising senior, I know how difficult it is to search for a school that meets all your needs, be they class size, student teacher ratio, best dorms, or even best parties. Every little thing counts in order to make sure your four years go smoothly. But when cruising college campuses and digging through acceptance stats, how many of us stop to think about how a school best our meets ecological needs? I doubt most even have a clue how to tell just how green their dream college or university really is.

It might not be a top priority for some, but for those young men and women who are becoming increasingly environmentally aware, it is important for them to have this information at hand.

In fact, according to a Princeton review survey, “six out of 10 college applicants and parents say the environmental factor would affect their decision to apply to or attend a school.”

Groups such the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and the Sustainable Endowments Institute (SEI) have started to release rating systems which students and parents can use to narrow down or even expand their college choices. The SEI in Cambridge Massachusetts gives letter grades to at least 200 public and private schools with the largest endowments. It grades how well a school uses its funds to advocate for the environment, as well as green campus factors.

Among those colleges listed as “Climate Change and Energy Leaders” are: Amherst College, Arizona State, Cornell University, Duke University, Harvard, MIT, New York University, Northeastern University, Tufts University, University of Washington, Wesleyan, and Yale. To find out more about various other colleges and to see who else made the list, check out theSEI’s 2008 Report Card. And while you’re at it, read more about others’ takes on the sustainability reports.

Personally, I love the idea of the reports, and will definitely be factoring them into my ongoing search for the perfect college.

(Shame on you, Northwestern! Go Cornell!)

Congratulations to Adi Segal, the Green Camp Initiative Coordinator, for all of his successes with Camp Ramah in the Berkshires!

Adi Segal has united with the staff at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires to form a commendable community-benefiting venture, which emphasizes the deeply-rooted Jewish value of environmentalism. The Initiative works to make the Berkshires Camp, and other sleep away camps, more environmentally sustainable through educating and leading by example. It raises awareness about environmental issues; increases conscious activism among staff and campers; and decreases the amount of waste (i.e. solids, water, energy, etc.) produced in the camp, thereby reducing its Eco-Footprint. It strives to reach all 600 campers and 200 staff members so that they will leave camp with a new eco-friendly mindset, bringing the message of environmentalism home to their communities.

Already, the Initiative has instituted a recycling program, introduced green cleaning products, replaced all light bulbs with CFLs, switched to post-consumer recycled paper, and reduced the plastic drinking cup usage by over 25,000. In addition, each age group will have programming dedicated to environmentalism; these eco-friendly courses will include Torah study, trash audits, and sustainable farming.

Camp Ramah in the Berkshires is the first camp to be inducted into the Green Flag Schools program and the Rutgers Environmental Cooperative Purchasing Agreement, which will allow Camp Ramah to buy green products at a discounted price. With the Camp Ramah's and Adi's combined dedication to sustainability, the environment is sure to continue to benefit!

Let the games begin!

Every fall, the East Campus dorms at Duke University partake in a month-long waste, water, and energy reduction competition. Students earn points for their residence hall and prizes for themselves by doing their part to reduce their ecological footprints and to become educated about the environment. Here are the highlights:

Recycling Rate- Residence halls with fewer amounts of recyclable materials in their trash bags (on an unannounced day during the competition) score higher.

Energy Reduction- The greater the dorms reduce electricity usage below their per capita (based on historical consumption data), the more points they receive.

Online Impact Survey- Residence halls are scored according to the percentage of residents that finish a survey, thereby helping the university assess the level of environmental literacy of the freshmen class.

Eco-Film Series- Students earn participation points for their dorms by attending showings of environmentally-themed films, such as Planet Earth.

Zero Energy Pledge- Residence halls gain points if residents promise to unplug appliances before leaving campus for Fall Break.

Eco-Trivia Night- Points are awarded by taking an environmental trivia quiz.

Recycle for the Children- Students earn points if they pick up bottles, cans and glasses around the football stadium following every home football game. (Proceeds from the sale of the materials go to the Duke Children's Hospital.)

Earth Jam- Attendees engage in an interactive environmental festival about environmental stewardship and receive credit for coming.

Eco-Footprint Calculator- Students collect points for their dorms by calculating the environmental impact of their lifestyle choices.

The residence hall with the most cumulated points at the end of the month gets cake from Mad Hatters and ice cream from Maple View Farms in a championship party with the University President. Individual prizes through raffle include an iPod Nano, iTunes Gift Card, a Trek mountain bike, and gift certificates to local restaurants and Duke Stores.

These are some of the events that take place in Duke's Eco-Olympics, and some great ideas to start your own Eco-Olympics at your school! Let the games begin on your campus, and help promote environmentally-friendly behavior and awareness across the entire student body. For more information, click here.

Photo courtesy of Duke Environmental Alliance.

The Barnard Eco-Representatives one of Conscious Lifestyle’s ventures, has a new website! These 10 students from Barnard College organize educational programming to help students live “environmentally-conscious” lifestyles. On their site you can learn even more about the EcoReps, what they do, and even get involved in Earth-friendly campus happenings. Take a look at their Green in NYC page, which has lots of good info about eco-friendly activities, restaurants, bakeries, farmers’ markets, and thrift stores in New York City. There are also some good tips on green living in general. Check out the The Eco-Reps today!

The Laker School in Michigan has taken great strides in going green. As one of the windiest places in the country, the small, rural, school gathers their power from wind. Giant, utility-scale wind turbines provide the Jr. High with year-round power, thanks to the District’s zest for embracing renewable energy.

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The school is able to afford such a feat due to acquiring various grants sought out by Junior High Principal Kathy Dickens. Threeyears ago, she helped the school receive more than a quarter of a million dollars to buy the wind turbines. Since then, Laker Jr. High has received energy smart incentives, biomass and biodiesel grants. With the help of these grants, the school can help educate about the importance of green living, environmental sustainability, and energy renewal.

Recently, The Laker School District received a $59,120 federal grant to help equip a dozen of their school buses with emission-reducing equipment, and with $44,000 of the school’s own money, replaces the district’s oldest bus with a new, low-emission model.

Along with aiding the environment, the Laker School helps prepare kids for future green careers.

With The Laker School’s own anaerobic biodiesel processor, students learn to press oil from soybeans and sunflower seeds they’ve grown by hand in order to produce their own biodiesel.

Dickens says, “Too many bright, promising students leave this county after graduation. If wind, sun, or even an anaerobic processor can provide future jobs, I’ll keep writing grants to give students the training they need for green careers.”

Operating on the belief that “children learn best through experience. If their schools are green, children will learn to live that way,” the Center for Environmental Education is an online resource for students and teachers at K-12 schools, bursting with information and how-to’s for greening their environments. Available on its Web site is “Blueprint for a Green School,” which gives suggestions for three levels of action in ten categories: curriculum, energy, environmental health, food, green building, maintenance, procurement, recycling and waste, transportation, and water. Students and teachers can also learn more about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change issues here.

In addition, there’s a searchable collection of reviewed environmental curricula, and a soon-to-come section on demonstration schools, with profiles of schools that are in the process of change.

“Blueprint for a Green School” was written in 1995 by Jayni Chase, the founder of the CEE. In 2008, it’s being updated and made accessible for download off the Internet. According to the CEE, it’s become “a vital link between the ‘in-the-trenches’ educators and the abundant environmental resources available.”

I won’t lie to you. Camping is not one of my favorite things to do. The outdoors is a beautiful thing, but I’d take the comfort of a good book and my nice warm bed over dirt floors any day.

Matt Schlein and his class of nineteen high school students would most likely disagree. Although what they’re doing might not be considered ‘camping,’ it certainly is roughing it. Schlein, New York Native and teacher started a foundation that raised the money to buy 260 acres of land to use as a classroom.

That’s right, a classroom.

This foundation, The Walden Project, is an alternative program focused on environmental studies and on the teachings of Henry David Thoreau, who did some of his best thinking outdoors at Walden Pond.

Two or three days a week, Schlein and his students gather on old benches and chairs in the woods to study, discuss, and explore their relationship to the natural world. Whether rain, sleet, or snow, they remain outside; their only shelter a tent constructed out of donated sail material.

"Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man. Its presence refreshes him," Schlein says.

How “Thoreau” of them.

Bad puns aside, Schlein and his class are a real breath of fresh air. None of the students have been forced into an environment they’re uncomfortable with. In fact, they describe the experience as much more enriching than anything a traditional high school could offer them.

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Although I don’t think the Girl Scouts are going to be selling boxes of CFL lightbulbs instead of cookies any time soon—why change a good and delicious thing?--groups of other stripes are always looking for creative ways to raise money for their organizations. Now your group can choose to sell recycled paper goods, green home cleaners, energy-efficient showerheads, and yes, low-energy lightbulbs through several Web-based green fundraising organizations. You register your group on the Web site, tell your prospective buyers to visit it and make their purchases, and your group gets a check in the mail.

LetsGoGreen.biz and Greenraising.comoffer groups the opportunity to earn between 25% and 40% of the price on each eco-conscious product their friends and relatives buy. This percentage is not as high as on traditional fundraising items—typically 50% to 75%--because traditional items are mass-produced, often overseas, thus cheaper to produce, making it easier to pass on a greater percentage of the profit. But green fundraising contains an educational and pro-environmental aspect—for both buyers and sellers--that can make up for the lower profit.

And if consumers like the products, they can keep on buying through the fundraising websites, generating additional income for the group after the initial drive is over. So if your group can operate with a steady stream of income instead of a one-time payment as in the traditional model, green fundraising may be something to think about.

Now if only there were a way to keep on buying Girl Scout cookies…

Focus The Nation is an educational initiative on global warming solutions for America occurring at more than 1,000 universities, colleges, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations, and businesses, in all 50 states on Jan. 31, 2008.

The teach-in has two goals: to formulate policy solutions that can be implemented immediately; and to explore a new model of collaborative, interdisciplinary education on a national scale, needed to tackle the interconnected social, environmental, and political issues of climate change.

Attendees will participate in workshops and panels, brainstorming global warming solutions. Each Focus team will invite local, state, and federal political leaders and decision-makers to participate in a non-partisan, round-table discussion of global warming solutions. Every institution will also vote on its top five national priorities for global warming action, producing a campus- and citizen-endorsed policy agenda for 2008.

There’s still time to get involved – learn how at the Focus the Nation web site.

MonsterTRAK, an online career and recruitment Web site, wants to help you out with that major decision. It has developed GreenCareers, a site for college students and recent graduates listing environmentally responsible jobs and internships. GreenCareers includes entry-level, part-time, volunteer, and internship opportunities at organizations of all sizes that positively impact the environment. These are both "green jobs" and jobs at "green companies." The site also features career advice and articles on living green, green activism, and related news.

GreenCareers was developed in partnership with ecoAmerica, a consumer research and marketing environmental nonprofit, and is sponsored by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit organization linking science, economics, and law to find solutions to environmental problems.

For more information, visit
GreenCareers

Happy hunting!