Green & Healthy School Teams
Project Ideas
OEC’s Green & Healthy School Team project relies primarily on a web-based tool called the “Green
Squad.” The Green Squad website provides students the tools and information they need to investigate
the environmental health of their school. The website includes information and resources on a range of
environmental health issues that may occur in schools, including:
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Asthma
Cleaning Products
Diesel school buses
Drinking water
Indoor air quality
Lead
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Pesticides
Saving Energy
Saving Paper
Saving Water
Solar Energy
For each of these issues, the Green Squad website includes a list of things kids can do, things the school
can do and specific project ideas for students. Following are many of the project ideas offered on the
website, as well as other projects we suggest that are designed to reduce asthma triggers in and around
your school:
Diesel School Buses
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Make a bus map: Observe the area where buses drop off or pick up kids. Is it close to any buildings? Could
bus exhaust get inside the buildings? If so, draw a map of the loading area and any nearby buildings,
showing windows, doors and air vents that could let in exhaust. Give the map to your principal and ask for a
new waiting area for buses.
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Start an anti-idling campaign. Begin by timing how long buses run outside your school. Use a timer to
measure how long the engines stay on when buses are parked outside your school. Ask your school bus
drivers to take a pledge to turn off buses when parked. Consider combining a bus anti-idling campaign with
an all-vehicle anti-idling campaign (see below).
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Chart clean fuels: Research cleaner school bus fuels. Try looking up "propane," "LP gas," "compressed
natural gas" or "CNG." Find out where the fuels come from and how much pollution they cause, then make a
chart comparing cleaner fuels with diesel. A good place to start is the EPA fact sheet Clean Fuels: An
Overview, which contains some helpful tables comparing different kinds of fuel.
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Campaign for cleaner buses: Talk to your principal to find out who is in charge of making decisions about
new school bus purchases. Then ask the person or people responsible (it may be the head of transportation
for your district, or it may be the school board) to switch to cleaner buses. You can write a letter or start a
petition. Click here to see a sample letter. You can find the names and addresses of school district staff
and the members of your school board at your school office.
Idling Cars
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Idling study: Observe how many parents/caregivers idle their car engines outside the school. Use a timer to
measure how long each vehicle idles. (Do the observations before and after they carry out a project
educating parents about idling at your school).
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Make a traffic map: Observe the areas where parents/caregivers drop off or pick up kids. Is it close to any
buildings? Could vehicle exhaust get inside the buildings? If so, draw a map of pick up and drop off areas
and any nearby buildings, windows, doors and air vents that could let in vehicle exhaust.
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Calculate idling costs: Figure out what five minutes of idling costs the driver. One hour of idling burns up a
gallon of fuel.
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Campaign to reduce vehicle idling: Work with your school to ask parents to pledge to turn off their engines
when parked. Use signs and banners to remind people to turn their engines off, such as “Its Not Cool to Idle
at School” (OEC can provide signs and banners and pledge forms).
Indoor Air Quality
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Mold monitoring: Inspect your school for signs of mold. Pick a room (or several) and examine all the
surfaces for mold, which is often slimy or fuzzy, and is usually green, black, orange or purple. (But if you find
it, don't touch it!) Also check for signs of leaks or dampness. Use your nose to help you: Pay attention to any
musty or earthy smells. Keep a list, then report your findings to your principal. Make a map showing any
places you found mold or leaks, or noticed odd smells.
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Vent search: Take some time to locate all the indoor vents in your classroom. Some may be built into walls
or ceilings, others may be parts of heaters or air conditioners. Make sure air is able to flow freely through
them all. If anything is blocking a vent, move it. Look for the intake vents outside the school building (the
ones that draw in air from the outside) too, and check whether they're near pollution sources, such as
exhaust fans or trucks and buses. If they are, report this to your principal. Safety note: Keep your hands out
of the vents and equipment. And get permission and help from the custodian before investigating any
equipment closets.
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Inside view: If your classroom has an air conditioner or any other ventilating equipment, ask your custodian
to show you the inside. If it's dirty, rusty or dusty, it needs to be cleaned.
Pesticides
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Gardening group: If your school has shrubs or bushes outdoors, why not start a club to make them beautiful
and chemical-free? It's a great way to spend time outdoors, learn about plants and put your
environmentalism into action. Planting bushes and shrubs away from the building keeps pests at a distance,
too.
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Research native plants: Plants that grow naturally in your region are less likely to need pesticides to stay
healthy because they've adapted to the area's climate and soil conditions. Find out which plants are native
to your region. Which are the most common? Which have special characteristics? Have any of them
disappeared? A gardening guide can get you started. To find one, try an Internet search with terms like
"gardening," "native plants" and "guide," plus the name of your state or region.
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Anti-pest patrols: Take a tour of your school, looking for places that might attract rodents or bugs. Is trash
piling up in a room or an empty locker? Do cracks or other openings need to be sealed? Make a list of
problem areas and report them to your custodian or principal. Make a map and show how you and your
school can keep pests out of your school.
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Clean Out Your Desk or Locker Day: Do the desks in your classroom have drawers? If they do, set aside a
day to clean them out. Get rid of garbage and crumbs. Who knows -- you might find that notebook you've
been looking for! Locker cleanup day is a good idea, too.
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Food-Free Zones: Your school should designate areas where food is prohibited. If your school doesn't
already have food-free zones, look around and suggest areas where food should and shouldn't be allowed.
If your school is going to keep pests out of the classrooms without using chemical pesticides, then food has
to stay out of the classrooms, too.
Energy Efficiency
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Equipment reminders: It's easy to forget to turn equipment off. Posting reminders can help people get into
this important habit. Remember that after a while, people get used to seeing the reminders, and they tune
them out. To prevent this from happening, make new reminders from time to time to grab people's attention
again.
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Window watcher: Test the seals on the windows in your school. Hold a piece of ribbon along the windows'
edges. If it flutters, the window isn't sealed tightly enough and needs to be fixed. Keep a list of windows with
seals that need work and report what you find.
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School equipment survey: Go through your school (or a part of your school) and make a list of all the
computers, copiers, printers and other equipment. Think about which ones could be turned off or use the
sleep mode. (Some pieces of equipment -- such as fax machines and certain printers that need to print out
emergency reports -- are normally left on.) Find out who is responsible for running each of these machines -teachers, office staff or librarians -- and ask if they turn them off at night, or if they use the sleep mode. If
they don't follow these simple practices already, encourage them to start.
Solar Energy
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Solar study: Learn more about solar power. Ask your custodian or principal for information about the amount
of electricity your school uses each month. Then make a chart comparing solar-powered electricity with
more traditional sources and estimate how much less pollution your school would create by switching at
least in part to solar power.
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Temperature check: If you've ever crossed to the sunny side of the street to warm up, you were taking
advantage of the sun's ability to provide heat. Why not see how much the sun warms your classroom?
Measure the sun's heat through the glass. Take the temperature near the window and in a less sunny spot
to see the difference.
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Solar science projects: Visit the Department of Energy's Energy Science Projects and Activities site and check
out the brochure Solar Energy Science Projects (note that this is an Adobe Acrobat file) for experiments your
class can do to learn more about solar heating and electricity.
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Campaign for solar power: Write a letter, or start a petition, asking your school district to use solar power.
Click here for a sample letter. Your school's office can tell you how to contact the members of your school
board.
Drinking Water
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Test your school's drinking water for lead: Find out if your school's drinking water contains lead, and if so,
how much. Even if your school already tests for lead, you can still find out a lot from your own test. (It's a
great way to learn more math and science.) You can also test your water at home. An inexpensive leadtesting kit is available from the University of North Carolina's Environmental Quality Institute (828 251-6104),
which will analyze the sample you take and explain the results. You can also contact a nearby state-certified
lab. Call the Environmental Protection Agency's drinking water hotline at (800) 426-4701 for a list of labs.
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Go to the source: Find out who supplies your school's drinking water, then get its annual water quality report.
Make a map that shows the route your water travels from its source to your school, and explain what kinds
of contamination threats your water supply faces.
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Join (or form) a watershed protection group: Across the country, people are working together to protect and
restore their watersheds. The Environmental Protection Agency can help you learn about existing groups or
give you advice on starting your own group.
Lead
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Lead alerts: Do the kids in your school know that soil can contain lead? Make posters reminding them to
brush or wash off dirt after playing sports. Post them in bathrooms or locker rooms and by the gym door.
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Lead tests: Get a group together and with a teacher's supervision test different areas of your school for lead.
You can test dust on windowsills, soil (especially in areas near the building) or water from the tap.
Inexpensive lead-testing kits are available from the University of North Carolina's Environmental Quality
Institute (828 251-6104), which will analyze and explain the results. (You can also use these kits to test lead
levels at home.) Contact the institute directly if you're interested in testing multiple sites at your school.
Saving Water
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Reminders to stop running: Make signs or posters to put near faucets to remind people to turn them off.
Change them periodically, so people will keep reading them -- and remembering the message.
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Calculate how much water a dripping faucet wastes: Check out WaterWiser's Drip Calculator to see how much
water is wasted when a fixture drips. Enter the number of drips per minute, then see how much it adds up to
each day, month or year. You'll be amazed!
Saving Paper
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Paper proposals: Take some time to observe how paper is used in your school. You'll probably discover
examples of waste. Make a list of five to10 ways your school can use paper more efficiently, then present it
to your principal.
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Scrap pile: Choose a spot in your class for collecting paper that can be reused. Some of it might make good
scribble paper. Or you could collect some bigger sheets and staple them together, perhaps on a cardboard
backing, to make assignment pads. Colored paper is good for art projects -- try cutting it up to use for
"mosaics."
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Make your own recycled paper: Making your own paper is a fun project. And you'll be doing your own
recycling! There are lots of books and websites to help you. Try this guide from the Exploratorium.
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Paper review: Find out what kind of paper your school buys for its offices and classrooms. Check the
packaging to see if it's recycled (it should have at least 30 percent post-consumer waste). Also, see if it has
a PCF label to show it was made without chlorine bleaching. If your school uses paper whitened with
chlorine bleach, talk to your principal.
OREGON ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL
Clean air
Clean water
Clear thinking
For more information about the Green & Healthy School Teams, contact Laura Weiss at 503-222-1963,
ext 111 or at laura@orcouncil.org