Green Your Lives
Registered: December 2009
City/Town/Province: Derry
Posts: 2
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The Green Your Lives project started because of the students’ dedication and passion for the environment. We believe that living green should begin within the school system and if it begins there it is likely to have the most impact. Our team was absolutely on a mission and our school wanted to facilitate and help us in our endeavor. We approached the school system and made a presentation; our ideas for how we thought the school could move towards a greener living. These ideas were based on surveys (from 312 students from 6th and 7th grades in NH) that our team had independently conducted to determine the students’ understanding of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions; their recycling habits and behaviors, their understanding of the lifecycle of the products they use, their readiness to want to make a change based on understanding the impact of their actions. The school system was more than happy to help us and capitalize on our input as the entire district was already evaluating ways to Go Green. The project has been ongoing for over nine (9) months now.
Environmental need for the project and appropriateness:
Going green is not an option, it is a necessity. Environmental responsibility is everyone’s responsibility. Every action we take has a consequence; several of them have a negative impact on our planet. Only we have the power to control our actions and decide what kind of an impact those actions leave on our planet. When we decide to cut down the rain forests for personal gains, we are wiping out huge carbon sinks. When we decide to leave the rain forests alone to grow and flourish, we are preserving our forests and also benefiting by that simple action. We are improving our health, minimizing carbon, protecting the animals, promoting biodiversity, and improving our overall quality of our life. Our natural resources are rapidly depleting, the environment is severely stressed, and when adopting a greener lifestyle does not come with a cost to us, why then shouldn’t we be taking the green road?
We believe that it is in our hands to make environmentally responsible and sustainable choices. Our goal is to advocate for greener practices; initially, within our school district, we are educating the students and the community about the necessity to start living green. We are accomplishing this by gradually shifting to greener choices, conserving energy, and minimizing waste, whenever and wherever possible.
We hope that our initiative will serve as a model for other school districts, and that we can apply the lessons learned from this initiative to future implementations. While this effort is new and considered novel, we do anticipate larger movements towards a greener lifestyle in the years to come; we are happy to be a part of these pioneering efforts.
We aim to quantify the amount of waste reduced by each of our actions, the amount of energy saved as a result of those actions, and most importantly how our actions can reduce carbon emissions. We hope that accomplishing our goals can make others feel the weight of personal responsibility and in turn do their part to conserve natural resources and preserve our earth. We are confident that this is the only way we can protect our planet for future generations.
Outcomes of the project:
This project, Green Your Lives, is a student led initiative and this has directly contributed to significant cost savings and improved ecological stability in seven schools. Over the first nine months, the team’s efforts have reduced paper output by 30%; promoted using 100 percent recycled paper in all cases; defaulted all printers in school to print double side; powering down classrooms nearly 100% of the time when not in use; powering down computers nearly 100% of the time when not in use; improved recycling in cafeteria and made the process faster; reduced energy output from computers and classrooms [currently being quantified]; educated several hundred students in seven schools about the waste output and the lifecycles of products that they buy and use; received financial support ($2750) from two local non-profit organizations in New Hampshire and financial support ($1000) from one organization in the west coast (California) for their efforts; raised awareness about recycling in the student community and diverted over 1000 pounds of materials (since program started this year) that would otherwise have gone into landfills or waste streams. Drawing from the success of these activities, the team is working towards implementing additional changes and challenges in the years to come and hopes other schools will follow suit.
Project Goals and Activities/Action Plan:
The primary objectives of this project are to:
-raise awareness regarding our fragile planet;
-raise awareness regarding the alarming and growing problem of how our natural resources are dwindling and our nation as a whole is being affected; and
-inspire schools, individuals, and communities to start living green.
Below, we have included details on activities that we have conducted in the past, activities that we are currently implementing, and activities that we have planned for the future. As this project will be ongoing, we will be making changes as warranted, based on lessons learned.
 Past Activities
Using less energy in areas where costs have increased
Powering down classrooms when not in use
Using alternative lights whenever possible
Shutting down computers at day end
Keeping thermostats down to a lower temperature
Minimizing sending printed notices home
E-mailing parents weekly school updates
Recycling paper, bottles, plastic, and cans
Buying supplies made with recycled content
Planting trees
Initiated a Give and Go program in the community; this program encourages students to donate their no-longer-needed items (such as unopened food, small appliances, clean clothing, etc.) for use by a local non-profit. This year, 11 van loads of unwanted materials were saved from the local landfill and used by the local Salvation Army, which netted $3,000 at its summer garage sale.
Created and distributed DVDs to encourage people to go green
Created a chain reaction flow chart and distributed to students so they can see the negative impacts of not going green (attached)
 Present Activities
Print double-side pages
Share copies when possible
Utilize half-sheets
Educate children in schools/communities about the importance of conserving energy
Answer trivia questions about going green every week
Graph and compare energy usage from past years with usage after conservation programs were included
Design “Recycle, Reduce, and Reuse [3Rs]” posters and hang throughout the schools
Recycle bottles and ink cartridges in addition to other materials recycled in the past
Turn off water when scrubbing hands
Encourage children to clean up classroom floors to cut down on vacuuming
Incorporate books on recycling into the curriculum
Place recycling bins in every classroom and in cafeteria
Developing a website to promote awareness
Cut back on paper usage further and default all printers to print on both sides.
Take steps to cut back on the number of vehicles on the road by encouraging students to ride the bus to school or car pool with neighbors going to same school.
Conduct science experiments
 Future Activities
Start a composting program to recycle food scraps instead of tossing them in the trash
Install composting bins outside school building; involve experts to identify placement locations
Identify correct food types to compost; involve experts in the process
Visit bins throughout the school year to understand decomposition process
Use composted materials as fertilizer for landscaping on school grounds
Plant new landscape around the building in spring
Devise ways to measure energy usage after enacting the new usage measures
Conduct energy audits
Develop tools, resources (such as a Living Green Planning Guide) and networking opportunities for other schools; this will be done with input from teachers, parents, administrators, and experts in the community
Expand website to be interactive and post tools and resources for immediate download
Initiate a Green Move-Out program to encourage donation of leftover food and unwanted clothing and electronics to be distributed to shelters, food banks, and other services around our area.
Initiate a light bulb exchange program allowing students to exchange inefficient light bulbs for energy efficient bulbs; use old bulbs to create innovative art and sell to fund the eco-program at school.
Initiate a Farm to Fork program to buy food for cafeteria from local merchants. This brings in fresher and higher-quality food to students, lessens environmental pollutants, and makes a positive impact on the local economy.
Build and maintain an organic garden featuring heirloom vegetables, including tomatoes, beets, peppers, spinach, radishes, rhubarb, beans, herbs, potatoes, carrots, and parsnips.
Provide tools, resources, and networking opportunities to guide other communities to get on the green road.
Every activity we listed above needed input and approval from the school district and authority. Last school year the school system decided to form a Go Green action committee which has 17 teachers/administrators from the school district. In addition to meeting and discussing ways to go green, this committee also takes input from the students and obtains approval from the principal and superintendent as needed for us to make that activity a reality. For example, when we started cafeteria recycling, we made posters to educate children about what items are recyclable and what are not. We made simple posters that were reviewed by the principal and approved for posting in key locations in school premises. Following this, recycling process has consistently improved and is going faster. We have updated posters as needed based on how we saw the recycling posters were interpreted by the students. Another example involved organizing a special go green educational assembly for which we brought in an artist called Amazing Hero Art; two local non-profit organizations (Lil’ MDGs and Jayme’s Fund) sponsored the event. Every aspect of this event was organized environmentally friendly. It was a rewarding experience for the students and we got funding from Oracle Education Foundation to pay for the portraits which will soon be hung in the school lobby as a reminder of our efforts to continue to inspire other children to be somebody.
Community resources, expertise, leadership, and publicity used:
This project could not have reached this level without the support of staff, administrators, students, and volunteers at the following schools:
Derry Cooperative School District
Gilbert H. Hood School
West Running Brook School
Ernest P. Barka Elementary School
East Derry Elementary School
Derry Village Elementary School
Grinell Elementary School
South Range Elementary School
All 17 members of the Go Green Action Committee.
Special thanks to:
Kristin Yeaton (Organizer: Go Green Action Committee)
Kristen Miller, Kate B (Chair: Go Green Action Committee)
Peter Keeley (LA teacher: helping us with spreading awareness and involving classrooms)
Austin Garofalo (Principal: helping us with spreading awareness and involving classrooms)
Joe Crawford (Asst. Principal: helping us with spreading awareness and involving classrooms)
Mary Ellen Hannon (Superintendent of Schools – Derry)
Robin Respaut (Reporter – Nutfield News for promoting awareness by writing news articles) - publicity
Kimberly Pietz (Reporter – Union Leader for promoting awareness of our activities) - publicity
Julie Huss (Reporter – Derry News for promoting awareness of our activities) – publicity
Ammu Irivinti, Mark Irivinti & Ragho Mahalingam (for technical support with designing our experiments)
Office Depot, Nashua, NH and The UPS Store, Derry, NH – for donating and duplicating DVDs and posters for distribution
Our team approached two non-profit organizations to see if they can help us in this effort. As a result, Jayme’s Fund for Social Justice and Lil’ MDGs provided financial support (two local non-profits) supported our initiative by providing grants to inspire children to be somebody and make a difference; we were able to bring a program called Amazing Hero Art, where the artist painted life size portraits of historical figures to show everyone can make a difference. This special school assembly was attended by 730 children, majority of the school staff and administrators and was a special go green assembly. The project has been featured in news. For more information, please see answers to question 3 & 4 above.
Project innovation:
This project is innovative to begin with as it has been led by students. The collective ideas of the group have given ideas for simple things students can do in classrooms to help the environment. In addition to the ideas, we have created educational DVDs and are also conducting a series of experiments to determine what can be done to combat global warming. For example, after several attempts, we have finally built a working model of a car that runs on solar power. Parts for this were obtained by taking the help of parents and reaching into their network – by contacting engineers working in the Electrical Engineering field from Michigan Technological University and Johns Hopkins University. We are currently working on making a model car run on hydro power. The purpose of these experiments is to get other children excited about the possibilities of going green. These experiments were not easy for us to do as we needed to contact a multitude of individuals to make it happen.
Soundness of approach, rationale, and scientific design:
In addition to activities, we conducted scientific experiments outside of our classrooms to see what actions we can take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global warming. Our experiments were directed toward developing new technologies and sciences in an effort to reduce the extent of global warming through reducing energy use and switching to cleaner (or renewable) energy sources. Towards this goal, we first built a model of a car, from scratch, that finally runs on solar power! Our next experiment is to build a model of a car that runs on hydro power. The logic behind these experiments are based on strong fundamental understanding of the technology; the rationale behind these attempts are simple and sound and aimed at combating greenhouse gas emissions; the design and development of these models were done based on interviews and guidance from experts [Ragho Mahalingam, Ammu Irivinti, and Mark Irivinti] in the field.
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