Teach environmental literacy with Green Apple Day of Service

Published on: 
October 10, 2017
Author: 
Kristen Keim

Youth who are educated about sustainability and the environment help move us toward a society that considers the environmental impact of its everyday actions. Additionally, today’s younger generations must be literate in sustainability to compete in the growing green job market. Green Apple Day of Service is a great way to start implementing sustainability education in a school.

See our tips on how to educate for environmental and sustainability literacy as a Green Apple project.

Take a look at how these inspiring 2016 projects in Mexico implemented their ideas:

Green building education at Instituto Mater

Bioconstrucción, a green construction company in Mexico, dedicated a day to educating students and staff of Instituto Mater in Nuevo León about sustainability. The company was invited by the school to offer instruction on sustainable practices, such as identifying efficient A/C systems, insulating around windows to maintain the building temperature and using building orientation to maximize natural light and water collection. Using these tips, the school crafted a plan to remodel their buildings to be more sustainable.

Green Apple Day of Service with Bioconstruccion

Afterward, Bioconstrucción invited the students, ages 4 to 15, and staff to tour the company’s LEED Platinum building to learn what sustainable construction and green practices looked like in action. They provided advice for the school staff to promote and practice sustainability and provided information on the Green Classroom Professional certificate program available through USGBC.

As a result of the Green Apple Day of Service project, Instituto Mater has made a commitment to creating a more sustainable environment for their students, including incorporating sustainability into their educational program. The school also enhanced this commitment by enrolling teachers in Learning Lab, an online platform for teachers to find and use sustainability and STEM-based lessons.

Creative competitions with Escuela Promesa

As part of their 2016 Green Apple Day of Service program, Escuela Promesa, a nonprofit dedicated to teaching students about environmental education, challenged 90 schools (and their 61,490 students!) to participate in a “Google and SUMe” competition. SUMe is a partner organization dedicated to green building in Mexico. Two competitions were presented to schools, each based on age group, which challenged students to think about sustainability and the actions they could take to make a positive impact.

Green Apple Day of Service with Escuela Promesa

In the elementary schools, students created a story that that described the changes they could make in their own homes to make them more sustainable. Middle and high school students made videos explaining their vision of a sustainable city and the practices that their own cities would need to enact to reach that vision. Eight schools were recognized for their level of participation in the competition, and the winners were given certificates, plants for their school and (for the older students) a tour of the LEED Gold Google Mexico office.

These two projects in Mexico reflect how Green Apple projects can prepare students worldwide, through education, to face future environmental challenges.

Register a Green Apple Day of Service project

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