Resources
The Go Green Initiative is developing resources for a one-stop shop, and has pulled a few external resources, categorized by target audience. Contact Go Green Initiative for implementation support.
Programs
Sustainability Plan
- Go Green Teams Planning Guide pg 16 (Go Green Initiative)
- Starting a Green Team (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Tips for Starting a Green Team (Green Schools Initiative)
- What is (and how to do) a SWOT Analysis? (MindTools)
- Conducting an Audit & Environmental Review Checklist (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Healthy Sustainable Schools: Assessment Tool for Change pg 73 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Green Building Audits (Green Education Foundation)
- Operations Report Card (Collaborative for High Performance Schools)
- Action Tracking Spreadsheet (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Strategic Planning in Education - Keys to Success (ThoughtExchange)
- Green Enhancement of District Strategic Plans (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Strategic Plan Implementation of Green Initiatives (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Seven-Step Framework to creating a green action plan (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Setting SMART Goals for a Sustainability Plan (Supply Chain Solutions Center)
- Goal Setting within the Go Green Planning Guide (Go Green Initiative)
- Create an Implementation Plan (Smartsheet)
- Go Green Budget Planning Tool Appendix C (Go Green Initiative)
- Green Existing Schools webinar to create a sustainability plan (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Energy, Water Usage, Waste, Greenhouse Gas Emissions tracking (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager)
- Evaluating Environmental Impact pg 12-14 (Go Green Initiative)
- Action Tracking Spreadsheet (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Core Criteria (Collaborative for High Performance Schools)
- Action Implementation & Action Tracking Spreadsheet (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Healthy Sustainable Schools: Guide for Change (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Every School can be a Green School: Getting Started Checklist (Center for Green Schools)
- Greening Existing Schools with videos and guides (Center for Green Schools)
- Core Criteria and Best Practices Manual (Collaborative for High Performance Schools)
Utility Analysis & Reduction
- Energy, Water Usage, Waste, Greenhouse Gas Emissions tracking (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager)
Action Areas
Indoor Environmental Quality
- Healthy Sustainable Schools: Guide for Change extensive manual including indoor air quality, pest management, chemicals, Mercury, Lead, green cleaning (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Healthy school environment resources (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Lighting Quality (California State Architect’s Sustainable Schools Resource)
- Acoustical Quality (California State Architect’s Sustainable Schools Resource)
- Thermal Quality (California State Architect’s Sustainable Schools Resource)
- Asbestos and school buildings (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Indoor Environmental Quality (Environmental Protection Agency)
Facilities & Operations:
- Take Action to Improve Indoor Air Quality in Schools, IAQ Tools for Schools Action Kit & Creating healthy indoor air quality (IAQ) in schools (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Air Quality Flag Program (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Mold and indoor air quality in schools (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Best Practices for Reducing Near-Road Pollution Exposure at Schools (Environmental Protection Agency)
Teachers:
- Air Quality including Noise pollution, Indoor Air Quality (Environmental Protection Agency)
- AirNow tool interactive (Environmental Protection Agency)
Facilities & Operations:
- Audits
- Water Usage tracking (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager)
- Green Building (Water) Audits (Green Education Foundation)
- Conservation
- Water conservation pg 21 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Quality
- Water Quality & Testing (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Lead in Drinking Water in Schools (Environmental Protection Agency)
Teachers:
- Drinking Water (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Exploring School Water Data (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Water audits (by grade level) (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Water Use in the U.S., 1950-2015 interactive (U.S. Geological Survey)
- Water resources in California interactive (California Department of Water Resources)
Energy
- Audits
- Energy tracking (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager)
- Energy Use Audits (Green Education Foundation
- Conservation
- Energy conservation pg 17 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Energy savings programs
- Paid-From-Savings Guide to Green Existing Buildings (Center for Green Schools)
- How to Implement an Energy Savings Improvement Plan (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Energy Savings Improvement Plans steps & examples (NJ Clean Energy)
- Accessing Solar Energy in schools (Generation 180)
- Energy Efficiency Student Toolkit (ENERGY STAR)
- Energy audits (by grade level) (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Energy (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Energy Data (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Analyzing Fuel Footprints (Green Education Foundation)
Food
- Healthy Sustainable Schools: Guide for Change includes nutrition, pg 53 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Nutrition Standards for School Meals (U. S. Department of Agriculture, Food & Nutrition Service)
- Child Nutrition Programs & Tools for Schools: Nutrition Programs (USDA, Food & Nutrition Service)
- School Health Guidelines: Quality School Meal Program (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)
- Comprehensive Framework for Addressing the School Nutrition Environment & Services (CDC)
- See Waste & Recycling > Food Services & Operations
- Food Access Research Atlas - interactive (USDA)
- Food Environment Atlas - interactive (USDA)
Waste & Recycling
- Reduce Use or Reuse
- Reduce Waste (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Reducing Paper Consumption pg 15-16 (Go Green Initiative)
- 16 ways to Cut Waste at School (Reuse this Bag)
- Reducing waste tips pg 33 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Negotiating with Your Waste Hauler Appendix A (Go Green Initiative)
- Waste Audits
- Waste tracking (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager)
- Digging Deep Through School Trash (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Cafeteria waste audits (Northeast Recycling Council)
- Waster Diversion Quantification Appendix B (Go Green Initiative)
- School recycling toolkit with waste audits and worksheets (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Solid Waste Management in Schools (Ministry of the Environment, India)
- Recycle
- Recycling planning pg 7 (Go Green Initiative)
- Recycle programs (TerraCycle)
- Setting up a recycling program (Clean River)
- 16 ways to Recycle at School (Reuse this Bag)
- School recycling toolkit including recycling plan and signage templates (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Recycling 101 (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Recycling Handbook for Teachers and Schools (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Recycling Toolkit and free standardized labels (Recycle Across America)
- Cafeteria waste audits (Northeast Recycling Council)
- Cafeteria Recycling & Set-up Guide (Grow NYC)
- Recycle Snack packaging (TerraCycle)
- Reduce Food Waste
- Sharing the Table: Roadmap to Reducing and Recovering Surplus Food in Schools (Center for Green Schools)
- Strategies to reduce food waste (No Kid Hungry)
- Reducing wasted food (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Food feeding animals (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Cafeteria Waste Practices (School Nutrition)
- Reducing food waste tips pg 39 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- Reducing Food Waste guide for schools (USDA)
- Compost
- Compost planning pg 5 (Go Green Initiative)
- How to begin a school composting program (Green Mountain Farm to School)
- Waste (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Waste Data (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Hands-on Audits (Green Schools Initiative)
- Consumption Waste Audit (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Lesson plans on litter and waste (EcoSchools)
- How Recycling Works video (Chittenden Solid Waste District)
- Recycling & Composting (PBS)
- Recycling & Waste Audit for all grades (GrowNYC)
- TerraCycle lessons (Cloud Institute)
- Recycling Handbook for Teachers and Schools (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
Health
- Asthma:
- Managing Asthma in the School Environment (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Managing Asthma: A Guide for Schools (National Institutes of Health)
- Understanding Building Health for People (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Environmental Health in CA interactive (CA Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment)
- Social Vulnerability Index and Health interactive (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Sustainability
- Educating Students for Sustainability & Environmental Literacy (Go Green Initiative)
- Policies:
- Policies & Templates pg 11-12 (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Green purchasing pg 29 (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency)
- K12 Climate Action plan inclusive of local priorities as well as policy changes (The Aspen Institute)
- Stakeholder Engagement & Training:
- ALL STAKEHOLDERS: Educating Others about Sustainability pg 9-11 (Go Green Initiative)
- BOARD: School Board Advocacy Toolkit (Center for Green Schools)
- FACILITIES / CUSTODIAL: Building Operator Certification (Green Schools Alliance)
- TEACHERS: Green Classroom Professional Certificate (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Funding Opportunities:
- Funding opportunities (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Opportunities to leverage ESSA funding for STEM education (Next Gen Science)
- See also “Energy” for ESIP resources
- Measuring School Sustainability (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Urban Trees, and other multi-topic, free lessons (U.S. Green Building Council)
- Educating Students for Sustainability & Environmental Literacy (Go Green Initiative)
- Environmental Justice interactive (Environmental Protection Agency)
Green Design
- The Green Schools Investment Guide for Healthy, Efficient and Inspiring Learning Spaces (Center for Green Schools)
- Getting started with Green / Sustainable design (Oregon School Boards Association)
- LEED Schools Fact Sheet (Center for Green Schools)
- Core Criteria & Best Practices Manual (Collaborative for High Performance Schools)
- Green Building Policy (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Building Operator Certification (Green Schools Alliance)
- Green Building Units and lessons by grade level (U.S. Green Building Council)
Climate Change
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions tracking (ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager)
Environmental Education & Education for Sustainability
- Educating Students for Sustainability & Environmental Literacy (Go Green Initiative)
- Education for Sustainability Standards and Performance Indicators (The Cloud Institute)
- National Education for Sustainability K–12 Student Learning Standards (US Education Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development)
- Environmental Literacy Framework and Evaluation (The North American Association for Environmental Education)
- National Action Plan for Educating for Sustainability (Center for Green Schools)
- Next Generation Science Standards tools and resources (Next Gen Science) and Science Assessments (Achieve)
- Pathways for NGSS and CCSS (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- Embedding EfS into your existing curriculum (The Cloud Institute)
- K-12 EfS curriculum with sample lessons (Education for Sustainability)
- EfS Reservoir of exemplary curricula and tools (The EfS Collective)
- NGSS curriculum planning (National Science Teaching Association)
- Sustainable Intelligence curriculum and other topics (Eco Rise)
- Curriculum Exemplars (Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation)
- EE units integrated across subject areas, by grade level (Eco-Schools, National Wildlife Federation)
- EE curricula and resources by grade level (Illinois University Library)
- EE units for history/social sciences and science by grade level (California Education and the Environment Initiative)
- Project Learning Tree curriculum, by grade level (Project Learning Tree)
- Sustainability units by grade level (The North American Association for Environmental Education)
- Literacy focused Sustainability units for ELA or social studies classes by grade level (WestEd)
- Seeds of Science/ Roots of Reading literacy in science (WestEd)
- ELA Standards alignment for Learning Lab lessons by grade level (US Green Building Council)
- SJS EfS resources by content area (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Teaching about the environment (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Earth Day lessons and classroom ideas (Edutopia)
- Sustainability lesson clearinghouse (Green Education Foundation)
- Introduction to Sustainable Intelligence lessons (US Green Building Council)
- Lessons for Ecological education, Food Sustainability, Systems Change (Eco Literacy)
- Global citizenship lessons, activities, and resources (Oxfam)
- STEM Day activities (Siemens)
- see also Resources
- Leadership consulting, Curriculum Design Studio workshops, and curriculum coaching (The Cloud Institute)
- EfS Starter Kit PD for teachers, including ways to incorporate EfS into curriculum (Sustainable Schools Project)
- How to create EfS aligned units (Sustainable Jersey for Schools)
- Integrating Sustainability Science Into the Classroom course (The EfS Collective)
- National Environmental Education Training Program (Environmental Protection Agency)
- Project Learning Tree workshops (Project Learning Tree)
- Activities for educating teachers about sustainability, starting on page 59 (Education for Sustainable Development)
- EE professional development including online (The North American Association for Environmental Education)
- How to incorporate nature education and environmental literacy course (Advancement Courses)
- Sustainability 101 certification NOCTI (Greens Education Foundation)
