TRAVERSE CITY, MI -- 17 Traverse Bay Area Schools have achieved the Michigan Green School Status. Here's the release from the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District:
Green is not just a color that you wear on the Irish holiday of St. Patrick’s Day. Green is a way of looking at how we live: a way of reducing your carbon footprint by conserving energy, respecting the environment, and embracing the use of renewable resources. Students from 17 schools across the five-county region have committed to various green practices this year and have earned official green certification for their school from the state through the Michigan Green Schools Program.
Momentum is building in the green initiative and schools and communities are helping our youth learn what can be done to better manage conservation and waste in the world around us. In 2006, the first year of Michigan Green Schools, 18 schools across the state participated in the program. Last year 389 schools became official Michigan Green Schools. This academic year, 2010-2011, over 600 schools are participating in the growing program: 17 of them from the five-county Traverse Bay region. This includes the following schools within the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District: Benzie Central High School, Benzie Platte River Elementary, Elk Rapids Cherryland Middle School, Forest Area Middle /High School, Frankfort Junior/Senior High School, Kalkaska Rapid City Elementary, Kalkaska Middle School, Kalkaska High School, Mancelona Elementary, Mancelona High School, Pathfinder School, Suttons Bay Public Schools, The Children’s House, and TCAPS Eastern Elementary, Montessori at Glenn Loomis, Willow Hill Elementary, and West Middle School.
Earning this designation takes considerable planning and support, not only from school staff and students, but families and the community at large. Designation is based on a point system centered on educational environmental activities for students pre-kindergarten through senior high school. Schools are encouraged to earn a minimum of 10 points annually through activities in four categories: Reduce/Reuse/Recycle renewable resources, Energy conservation, the environment, and miscellaneous projects. At least two activities within each of the four categories are required to meet certification requirements. Examples of these include: establishing a recycling program of paper, plastic, batteries, or other renewable items; implementation of an energy savings program within the school building, teaching a unit on environmental issues facing Michigan, and invite an environmental speaker to present a topic at a student assembly. School coordinators are appointed to lead these initiatives for each participating school.
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Some highlights from this year’s green projects include:
· Cherryland Middle School adopted an energy savings plan by introducing fluorescent lighting to reduce electrical consumption. Installation of new thermostat controls and a master sensor also helped to monitor usage. Tracking and measuring energy usage has confirmed a decrease in electrical use by almost 25% and natural gas consumption by about 15% over the past two years.
· Benzie Central High School, Frankfort Junior/Senior High School, and Kalkaska Middle School have invited the Great Lakes Energy mobile learning lab to their school to provide solar and wind energy demonstrations.
· The Children’s House operates a weather station for multiple purposes including monitoring of wind generation as a feasibility study for potential future use of wind power.
· Forest Area Middle and High Schools provide an opportunity for a solar cookout where students bake apple cobbler as well as zucchini bread using zucchini picked from their school garden.
· Several schools have introduced effective efforts in landfill reduction and cost savings practices in their cafeteria by utilizing silverware in place of plastic utensils. For one school this cut down weekly waste products by 25%.
In 2005 the Earth Day Network, U.S. Green Building Council and several other partners worked to champion a green schools initiative across the nation. In 2006 students and teachers from Hartland, Michigan introduced the Michigan Green Schools Program to the Michigan House and Senate. With overwhelming approval a bill was passed and signed by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm.
The Michigan Green School Program combines traditional education approaches with 21st century learning innovations and provides guidelines to help schools achieve environmental goals which include protecting the air, land, water and animals of our state along with world outreach through good ecological practices and the teaching of educational stewardship. For more information on these initiatives in the Traverse Bay region contact TBAISD Science Coordinator Tom Wessels at 231-922-7875. For more information on the Michigan Green Schools Program visit http://www.michigangreenschools.us/home.html
