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Schools Go Green Both Inside and Outside the Classroom
Sidwell Friends’ new middle school building in Washington, DC, was recently awarded a LEED Platinum rating, a first in the world, for its environmentally friendly design.
Leave No Lunch Waste Behind
Did you know that every school lunch creates an average of 67 pounds of trash per school year? Learn how to reduce the number of items in your lunch that must be thrown out.
E-mail EPA your story and pictures from your Waste-Free Lunch Day.
September is back-to-school month for millions of students, teachers, and administrators. As the nation’s youth prepares to learn the traditional 3Rs, middle school students at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, will be taught about the other 3Rs—reduce, reuse and recycle. Sidwell’s new middle school building is the world’s first US Green Building Council LEED Platinum-rated K-12 school. It’s easy to learn about ecology when visiting the school’s green roof; the importance of using renewable resources from their bamboo flooring; and innovative material reuse from the building’s exterior, which is western red cedar, reclaimed from wine casks, and decks and floors from Baltimore’s harbor.
From paper and computers to food scraps and yard waste, schools generate tons of waste. However, by incorporating recycling, composting, and waste reduction strategies into a school’s overall business plan, schools can benefit from reduced purchasing costs for new materials, reduced waste hauling and disposal costs, potential revenue from collected recyclables, and increased efficiency of operations.
Learning about the environment inside the classroom has its benefits, too. Teachers can implement environmentally based service-learning opportunities (PDF) (32pp, 410K, about PDF) that allow hands-on experiences, such as participating in community waste collection days. Through such activities, students gain new skills, such as communication, team-building, critical thinking, and decision-making, while developing a sense of civic responsibility.
This has certainly been the case at Sidwell, where according to Mike Saxenian, assistant head of school, building a more environmentally friendly building has had far reaching implications. “We started out designing a building, which turned into a green building, and that green building ended up transforming the whole school—culturally and operationally.”
Related Links:
- Need some help in leading your school's waste-free effort? Follow our Tools to Reduce Waste in Schools Guide
- Teachers: Order your environmental education materials now!
- Earn National Recognition – Schools can gain national recognition for their green initiatives by joining EPA's WasteWise program.
- Listen to EPA Region 2's Back to School Podcast