Frequently Asked Questions
The Go Green Planning Guide will answer most questions about the GGI. For any questions not addressed by the Planning Guide or the following FAQ’s, please feel free to contact us.
How can I bring the Go Green Initiative to my school/area?
The Go Green Initiative can be adopted by a local school, a PTA, a school district, or even by a city. There is no restriction on who may introduce the program in a community. Step-by-step guidance for implementing the Go Green Initiative can be found in the Go Green Planning Guide. When your community has decided to “Go Green”, Register your school with us online, and you’ll be connected with the global network of Go Green schools and resources.
How much does it cost to implement the Go Green Initiative?
There is no registration fee to join the Go Green Initiative Association; the program is free to all schools. As you utilize the Go Green Planning Guide to set goals for your community, you will also develop a budget for your tailor-made Go Green plan. It is entirely up to your Go Green team to determine how much you will spend to implement the Go Green Initiative. Some schools are able to get all their needs met through donations, while other schools make money by recycling aluminum, ink cartridges, cell phones, etc. Any funding you raise will be used directly in your school community; you will never be asked to pay dues or fees to the Go Green Initiative.
Will the Go Green Initiative create more work for teachers?
Absolutely not! The Go Green Initiative is designed to take some of the burden off of teachers by utilizing parent volunteers to assist teachers. Unlike environmental education (EE) programs of the past which gave little or no day-to-day support to teachers, the Go Green Initiative employs parent and student resources in the planning, scheduling and execution of EE on campus. With the Go Green Initiative, parents absorb some of the duties that would hamper teachers' ability to spend their time and energy focusing on creative ways to align EE with the core curriculum they already must to teach. Parents can do things like write grants; schedule educational assemblies; bring in technical experts for staff training; raise funds for after-school ecology clubs; find corporate sponsors for classroom equipment that facilitates recycling, etc. The Go Green Initiative respects how busy classroom teachers are and works to aid those teachers through parent involvement. In schools with low parent participation, the Go Green Initiative can be shaped to fit the campus culture to overcompensate with student participation. Where there is a will, there’s a way, and Go Green schools are operating successfully in urban, rural and suburban schools.
How does the Go Green Initiative relate to existing school curriculum?
The Go Green Initiative is not a curriculum program; it is a foundation upon which school communities make intelligent choices about what type of environmental education (EE) curriculum best suits their needs. Over the past 30 years, hundreds of EE curriculum programs have been written. The Go Green Initiative staff can help schools identify the best EE curriculum available based upon two factors:
- Which of the five principles of the Go Green Initiative does the curriculum address, e.g. generate compost, recycling, etc.; and
- How well does the curriculum align to your state's existing educational standards.
For instance, if a school in California wanted to focus heavily on recycling education (the 2nd and 3rd elements of the GGI), the Go Green Initiative staff would help that school find recycling curriculum that is aligned to the California state science standards. By doing so, teachers are not teaching a superfluous lesson when they engage in recycling education in their classroom, they are folding recycling education into state standards they are already required to cover.