So we know that bottled water is bad for our planet. We also know that cities are refusing to purchase bottled water for employees. Now, a school is joining that fight. Nerinx Hall, an all-women Catholic high school for girls here in the St Louis area, is taking bottled water out of its vending machines and giving the student body reusable bottles to stay hydrated. I applauded this decision, but apparently some people think the Constitution is going down with the Aquafina. In fact, I heard a friend’s parent (who has a daughter at the school) exclaiming what an outrage the ban was. Since Nerinx Hall is not so far from the school where I teach, I wondered if my school could do the same. Many states and schools have banned full-sugared sodas in schools, and water sales have increased as it replaces soda in vending machines. It’s become widely available, so how do you encourage both students and staff to give up the bottled water habit?

My first thought was, "Why is this such a big deal in the first place?" It wasn’t long ago that most people scoffed at paying a premium for what they can get for pennies at home. Remember that old joke that "Evian" was just "naive" spelled backwards? It’s been less than ten years since bottled water rose from a luxury product to a ubiquitous beverage of choice, yet mention banning bottled water, and "from my cold dead hands" cries ring out everywhere. When did we grow so attached to bottled water?

First off: provide an alternative. Nerinx Hall provided water bottles to its students, but it’s a private school, and I’m sure tuition could be adjusted to allow for Nalgene for every students. Public schools may have that option. See if your school store will sell reusable bottles with your school logo printed on it. If you don’t have a school store, maybe a student group could sell them for a fundraiser. I found them for just a few bucks here. Still better might be a school-wide incentive program for those willing to pledge to curb the bottled water habit–with the reusable bottles as the incentive.

Second: educate. Many people don’t realize that there’s a price to pay for that convenience: plastic bottles are made with petroleum. The light bulb goes off once people realize that the same stuff that causes climate change produces the bottles they throw away with little thought. Here’s a few articles that highlight just how harmful that seemingly-innocent bottle can be.

Third: check out the contracts you school has with vending machines. Do you have to have water in them? If not, get rid of it.

Four: point out the price factor. Most schools are pinching pennies. So why, at almost every meeting or professional development session, are we offered cold bottles of water (and, even worse, the tiny 8 oz, encouraging people to take more than one!). Why are we paying for this? We’ve got gorgeous refrigerated drinking fountains–get your school administration to purchase a few filtered-water pitchers for the teachers’ lounge instead.

Five: get students involved. I’ve blogged before about the impact of visiting a landfill or doing a waste audit of your school. Once they see the magnitude of the problem, they’ll be motivated to act. Who better than other kids to get students to say no to bottled water? Can your student council do an awareness campaign? Students and staff alike are more easily persuaded by student activism than teachers getting preachy.

I start school again tomorrow, and the kids don’t come back for another week, but I’ve already met with my Student Council: they want to continue to lead the way in creating a more environmentally sustainable learning environment. I can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with to tackle this problem!

The end of the school year is fast approaching. Twelve days for me, but who's counting? The end of school, in many grossly unrealistic teen movies, is often punctuated by kids gleefully throwing books and papers all over the hallway as they stick it to the man by trashing their locker before they head off for a summer of debauchery.

In reality, kids do have to clean out their lockers, and those of you with teens know how items in their possession tend to…accumulate, shall we say, over time. I've got students with textbooks, binders, notebooks, and paperbacks crammed into every square inch of their lockers. All that goes somewhere at the end of the year, and oftentimes, that place is the ginormous trash bins placed in the hallway to make end-of-year checkout move as smoothly and quickly as possible.

What's this got to do with green living? In my experience, the large majority of what gets thrown away at the end of the year is reusable or recycleable. With a little advanced preparation, and some prompting from teachers and parents, the piles of paper products, pencils, pens, etc., can be diverted from the trash and put to good use.

• Those old tests, worksheets, and papers that might not be fridge-worthy can easily be recycled: just make sure the trusty recycling bins are in just as convenient a place as trash bins.
• Start a school-supplies freestore. I easily did this by asking both teachers (we've got our own mess to clean up, as well) and students for still-usable three-ring binders, tablets, notebooks, writing utensils, looseleaf, markers, crayons, etc. Set up a collection table in a centrally-located area. Encourage kids to turn in items by swapping old items with summer-worthy trinkets like paperbacks, candy, pool passes, gift cards, etc. I use the collected items the following year for students who need supplies.
• Don't forget other recycleables: I guarantee that among the school-related items, their are surely soda bottles, aluminum cans, etc, that can also be recycled.
• Make sure there's a lost and found area: teens often borrow each others clothes, only to forget where they came from. Better they find their owner than end up in a landfill. Same with books, CDs, and other personal items.
• If you've got younger kids, make a trip to help your child clean out their locker without just pitching everything. Better yet, see if your PTO can help create a gently-used supply closet.

I'm lucky that I sponsor Student Council–this is an easy, but productive service project for my young activists.

Pssstt…You can do the same thing when you clean out your home office…

With all the buzz around green building, it's no surprise that K-12 schools around the country are starting to see the benefit of sustainable design. In fact, there are 32 K-12 buildings in the US and Canada that have already been LEED-certified.

Incorporating environmentally elements such as energy-efficient lighting, heating, and cooling, locally-sourced materials, renewable energy sources, non-toxic sealants, adhesives, and paints, green roofs, and greywater systems, schools are creating buildings that are working models of sustainability, providing excellent tools for lessons along with the obvious benefits to the environment.

Not only is the environment benefitting, but green school design serves other purposes, as well. The Elk River Area School District, located in Minnesota, has three LEED-certified schools, with a fourth, Twin Lakes Elementary, set to open in for 2007-2008 school year. District officials estimate that their green buildings will save the district $300,000 annually in operating costs, mostly due to decreased energy costs. Classrooms are designed to maximize natural light, using high, slanted windows to let in as much sunshine as possible. Light sensors automatically turn off lights in rooms when enough natural light is present. Light tubes line the hallways, funneling sunlight into the common areas.

Pine Jog Elementary School, which broke ground on Wednesday and will be Florida's first LEED-certified school, will use strategically-positioned "light shelves" to bounce sunlight around classrooms. Pine Jog officials note that although building costs will be 5-10% higher than a conventionally-built school, the district estimates that they will recoup that cost within five years due to energy and water savings. Greensboro, North Carolina's North Guilford Middle School even has three constructed wetlands that naturally filter sewage through a series of plants, grasses, and algae, with the cleansed wastewater used for athletic field irrigation.

Elk River officials cite research claiming that students who study in naturally-lit clasrooms performed 25% better on math and language arts tests. Their district, a previous winner of the EPA's Excellence Award in Indoor Air Quality, installs diffusers in all classrooms, which circulate clean air into classrooms, reducing airborne illnesses, which any teacher can tell you run rampant at elementary schools.

The buildings and their construction are environmentally-friendly, but thoughtful, user-friendly features will help promote sustainable-living habits among students, parents, and staff. Pine Jog will have ample bicycle parking, and preferential staff parking for those who drive hybrids. Great Seneca Creek Elementary School in Maryland has dual flush toilets, complete with (ahem) yellow and brown labels for the appropriate flush in the kindergarten rooms. All schools incorporate outdoor learning spaces and learning labs centered around the building design, seamlessly integrating sustainabilty across disciplines as a tool for learning traditional concepts.

Poster and essay contests are widely-used avenues to engage students in environmental activism, but are often solitary activities that involve individual students.

For those teachers looking for something more hands-on, opportunities beyond the traditional poster contests challenge teachers and students to design creative solutions to environmental problems. Students benefit by having a structured setting to think critically and creatively, problem solve, and work cooperatively (not to mention the possibility of extrinsic reward for winning!) Sponsoring groups benefit by finding young talent and creative solutions that may be marketable and beneficial to both businesses, non-profits, and communities.

The Lifecycle Building Challenge, sponsored by multiple groups, including the EPA, Green Building Blocks, and the American Institute of Architects, challenges professionals and students to create buildings, building services, and/or building components that promote materials reuse throughout the entire lifecycle of a building, from design to deconstruction.

By creating buildings that are able to be reused or whose components are built with minimal material waste, contestants will design solutions that reduce the large environmental impact that comes from building and design. Students can enter in three categories: building, component, and service, and the top designs from each category can win multiple prizes, including $2500.

Canon's Envirothon is an annual competition in which students compete for scholarships by demonstrating their knowledge of environmental science and natural resource management. Student team are tested in multiple subjects and present orally in order to determine winners. One of the most extensive contests, there are numerous local and state Envirothons in which student groups can participate, with winners advancing to the national competition.

Finally, hip-hop band The Roots and non-profit Global Inheritance are teaming up to sponsor Feed Your Roots, a student contest to promote composting in schools. Student groups create a program that involves composting and design a poster with information for schools about composting. Winning schools will receive specially-designed compost bins autographed by The Roots themselves.

Contests such as these are interesting and atypical ways to move students from thinking into doing, and hands-on problem-solving allows them to create authentic solutions and make real change in the schools and communities.