Greening School Facilities

If Earth Day and EDN are known for one thing, it is our work with community members to change hundreds of blighted communities into places with a future through thoughtful, well managed, community driven projects. EDN uniquely combines civic activism and education with all of our community projects, to not only develop community leadership, but build sustainable, civically active, and healthy communities across the nation. We now seek to significantly engage the center of every community, the school, to nationally transform the foundation of our communities into sustainable centers of learning.  

Over the next ten years, EDN will work with community groups, volunteers, policymakers, the USGBC, and others to create healthy, educational, and safe facilities for America’s 100,000 plus k-12 schools. Our school greening efforts improve both the physical and learning environments, while also encouraging action against multiple environmental problems. This campaign will promote hands-on, interdisciplinary learning through projects that benefit schools and increase green space and biodiversity in communities, such as outdoor, living classrooms, refurbishments with certified green building materials, or green roof installations.

Our school-wide conservation efforts will also include projects inside buildings, such as installing more energy-efficient products like CFL bulbs, Energy Star appliances, or conducting a school-wide energy audit. For example, the Katz report has proven that changes in lighting, in addition to other school greening initiatives, increase student performance, improve teacher retention and save money and resources. These action-oriented projects encourage students to learn leadership skills, engage environmental issues, and make conscious choice changes that lead to better environmental stewardship. This process catalyzes civic momentum for better communities by those involved, students, teachers, administrators, and volunteers, while rallying communities around their schools as centers for citizen action.

International Green Schools Campaign

EDN will debut its International Green Schools Campaign (IGSC) on Earth Day 2008. Students at 100 schools, from cities participating in the Clinton Climate Initiative’s 40 Largest Cities Campaign, will begin a year-long school-greening project with EDN’s help. Each school will compete to reduce its ecological footprint with the top performers receiving awards from EDN.  This will allow the winning schools to spend the next year taking their campaign to their communities and towns on Earth Day 2009. We will utilize the momentum from this campaign to encourage the adoption of nation-based eco-school certification programs and national green building standards, as well as to contribute to the signing into effect of the Second Round of the Kyoto Protocol. Our campaign partners include Youth Service America, EDN’s organizational partners in each of the cities we target, and a wide array of organizations representing the international youth climate change and service movements.