Going Green in the Classroom

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Going Green in the Classroom
I
Going Green is a term commonly coined when referencing recycling or giving back to the earth somehow. A lot of people are probably already familiar with recycling bins and have talked about going green on Earth Day, or planted a tree on Arbor Day. While these are all good starts, what I wanted to know is how I can make not only my classroom “green,” but extend the green awareness throughout the whole school year and educate my students and by extension their families how important and easy it is to go green.
My previous knowledge about going green was limited to what I do in my household. When I bought my house in 2009, I began sorting my recyclables and taking them off to one of the many recycling centers in Jefferson County. I quickly noticed how I was not accumulating as much trash and now, four years and one baby later, my family probably averages one bag of trash a week. Donating no longer wanted items to Goodwill, replacing light bulbs with more energy efficient ones, turning off lights and appliances when not in use, packing lunches into reusable containers, opening windows on nice days instead of running the air or heat, using recycled computer paper and using reusable grocery bags are a few more steps I take to go green within my household. While these are all great starts, I feel like I can take this a step further and incorporate it into my future classroom.
II
What I wanted to find out with my research was what could I do in my classroom to go green. Immediately recycling came to mind but I began thinking that there are probably a lot of other ways to go green besides recycling, and I wanted to know what they were. I wanted to find things that not only could be done inside the classroom...

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Works Cited

Furger, Robert. “Taking It to the Class: Green Projects for the Classroom.” The George Lucas Educational Foundation. Last updated October 2, 2007. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www.edutopia.org/environmentally-conscious-lesson-ideas.

“Idle Free Schools.” United States Environmental Protection Agency. Last updated March 16, 2014. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www2.epa.gov/region8/idle-free-schools.

Pack, Thomas. “We’ve Gone Green.” Jefferson County Public Schools Parent Connection. April 2009. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/pubs/parentconnection/Archive/Apr09/Features.shtml.

“Waste Collection vs Single Stream Recycling”. Jefferson County Public Schools, Safety, Environmental and Housekeeping Services. Accessed April 7, 2014. http://www.jefferson.k12.ky.us/departments/safetyenvirohouse/environmental/recycle.html.

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