How Green Can We Go?

There is an old proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. Now, it seems, it might take a child to save a village -- a global village that is. It's no secret that our Earth is in trouble -- terms such as polar ice caps, global warming, carbon footprint, pollution and sustainability are commonplace. But as these ideas become routine, general acceptance of the situation may emerge. A nonchalant repetition of the words with a misunderstanding of the gravity of the situation can be disastrous for our planet. As a society we can become jaded to the stark facts and figures that bombard us in commercials, magazines, newspapers, movies and books. What's often missing is what can be done, not only on a societal level, but on an individual basis.

As a companion to, Simply Green: A Few Steps in the Right Direction toward Integrating Sustainability into Public Sector IT, it is the intent of this paper to not only expand on these colloquial terms concerning the environment, but to provide information on the tangible steps that can be taken for a solution. In contrast to Simply Green, this paper is not aimed at teaching a whole lot of dogs new tricks, but instead is focused on using our education system to teach the ones that will matter most of all in undoing the damage that has already been done -- our children.

Section 1: The Environmental Imperative

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the Intergovernmental Panel reported at the 2007 United Nations Conference on Climate Change, "As is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."¹

This warming is due largely to expanding concentrations of carbon dioxide and other particulates in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.² And as a result of climate change, global weather patterns are shifting, creating extreme hurricanes, droughts and storms around the world.

Scarce water
Sufficient quantities of fresh water are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain for a growing, urbanizing world population. Unlike oil, however, the world's stock of water isn't being depleted. Water is the ultimate renewable resource and is continually being cycled throughout the environment. The problem for society is having enough usable water in the places where people need it.

Water can be moved great distances, as it is today in places like California and Arizona. Potable, or drinkable, water can also be created by desalinization -- the process of removing excess salt and other minerals from water. However, these options for making water available where it's needed require expensive, large-scale public works and affordable energy sources.

Peak Oil
Cheap oil, the basic building block of our current material wealth, is a thing of the past. Though there is debate about the quantity of untapped oil reserves and the possibility of producing oil from new sources such as oil shale,³ a consensus has emerged that the world is at or near the historical peak of oil. Simultaneously, consumption of, and demand for, this essential commodity continues to grow, particularly from the rapidly expanding economies of China and India.

Pollution above and below
Pollution of air, water and land is a problem that, unless stymied, will continue to expand as people go about their daily tasks. Pollution will only become more serious with growing industry and world population. The U.S. military already considers climate change and environmental degradation to be a threat to national security. China, the world's fastest growing economy, is suffering some of the most severe ramifications of pollution. The Chinese Ministry of Health has declared that as a result of pollution, cancer is China's leading cause of death.⁴

Section 2: Opportunities for Learning

The facts of sustainability may paint a dire picture, but with them can come an opportunity for learning and a chance for change. What our educational system can do is find ways to help children begin thinking 'outside of the box.' From here, we will look at a few ways we can help our schools reduce their carbon footprint, and in the process, inspire our children, the next generation, to live their everyday lives with the same mindset.

Digital Textbooks
It's really the bane of every college student's -- and even some high school students' -- existence: textbook purchasing time. A study in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education found that the average cost to a student at a four-year public university for textbooks was $893 a year. According to the same study, those costs are rising at 6 percent per year.⁵

Traditional textbooks are not only detrimental to financially challenged students; they are harmful to our environment with the depletion of trees and the chemical by-products of the paper-making process.

Now enter the digital textbook -- it's cheap, environmentally friendly and a lot easier on a college student's back. Regardless of increased efficiency in producing a traditional paper textbook, digital textbooks cannot be beat -- and a new crop of entrepreneurs know it. Sites dedicated to marketing this online learning have popped up in recent years. Some of these sites, like Freeload Press, offer many of the books for free, if one doesn't mind the occasional advertisement. Sans advertisements, books cost a fraction of what they would in a traditional version.⁶

Social networking
Everyone knows of the big two: MySpace and Facebook, the social networking home bases that draw millions of users. Even though the social networking phenomenon began as a way to reconnect with long-lost friends and as a procrastination tool for many a student, these types of sites are evolving into more of an educational go-to hub.

A Web site called TakePart "inspires" readers by showing trailers of movies like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and even has a carbon footprint calculator for anyone to figure up their impact on the Earth. Participants can then connect with others like them and choose to "act" and search for different causes that they would like to be involved in.⁷ Sites like this allow people who have common passions and beliefs to connect that might not have ever met before. These connections help to bring about change.

Virtual field trips
Located between the "Cabinets of Curiosity" exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the brontosaurus bones in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, lies a country full of impressionable students. America's museums house the best of the country's history and culture, two aspects that must be made available to young learners.

With the arrival of virtual field trips, some of these larger-than-life exhibits can be brought to a student's level with technology.

A middle school science lesson on biodiversity could be enhanced with the American Museum of Natural History's virtual "Exploring Bolivia's Biodiversity" exhibit: without leaving the classroom. In addition to broadening students' concept of the world around them, these virtual field trips do not require a carbon-emitting bus or plane.

eLearning
Every student remembers it: the sickening smell of the formaldehyde in the morning, watching the teacher 'unveil' what the day's project will be -- frog dissection. For today's students, though, trays and scalpels can be a thing of the past.

Electronic learning, or elearning, encompasses a variety of activities, including simulations of dissections. The recently released virtual reality-based V-Frog allows students to manipulate tissue and makes each dissection unique. It lets students see parts of the frog that they wouldn't even get to observe while dissecting the actual animal.

This type of elearning is also better for the environment. No animals are harmed with dissection simulations and students do not inhale potentially harmful chemicals.

Online Teacher Training
Ask any teacher what they would like to have more of, and the answer will most likely be "time." Most teachers are so busy preparing lesson plans, grading papers and instructing students that traveling to attend teacher training conferences to further their own education could be viewed as a major annoyance.

Online Web sites for professional development help solve this problem by bringing the instruction to the teachers on-demand, allowing them to work it into their busy schedules. School budgets benefit with decreased travel expenses and teachers' carbon footprint shrinks.

Curriculum and training future energy engineers
Most every lesson taught in American schools is linked to predetermined curriculum, accordingly this is where change must first occur. Interweaving environmentally friendly issues into the skeleton of the lesson is the first step.

This begins with environmentally conscious choices as to what tools are used to put a lesson together: post-consumer recycled paper, weighing the total cost of ownership of technology, and the presentation of environment-focused research, to name a few.

And some schools have heard the call for curriculum change. One program is the Michigan Environmental Education Curriculum Support program. The MEECS provides students in grades four through nine with an opportunity to learn more about their environment through lessons in science and social studies.

Section 3: School Planning and the Environment

While inspiring and teaching the next generation ways to heal the damage is of awesome importance, the other key objective of this paper is of a more tangible nature: the changes in the buildings our children our taught in, the means with which they get there and how it will all get paid for.

Budgeting and Finance
In responding to the demands of rapid technological change and environmental challenges, our society as a whole is struggling to develop new ways to make economic decisions that recognize trade-offs between current and future needs. Every organization struggles with a basic problem of gathering financial resources and then deciding how to employ them. Within that process there is a fundamental conflict between spending for current needs and investing for the future.

The practices and conventions of budgeting must be reconstructed to adjust to new environmental and technological imperatives. The reality of educational budget-making today is that there are significant disconnects between short and long-term costs and benefits.

Green school ratings
The LEED for Schools Rating System recognizes the unique nature of the design and construction of K-12 schools. The rating system addresses issues such as classroom acoustics, master planning, mold prevention and environmental site assessment.⁸

However, the greenest building is the one that is never built. In planning for building sustainability, the first question educators need to address is whether a building is even necessary. Any kind of building is becoming increasingly expensive to construct and maintain. Avoiding those costs is not only financially prudent, but environmentally responsible.

Transportation strategies
As with buildings, the biggest effect on transportation demand will be from policies and practices that eliminate the need for moving people to and from schools and school administrative offices. Transport substitution is one of the major benefits that are expected from e-learning and virtual schools. As online technologies mature, and as institutions and students learn how to utilize them effectively, there will be many opportunities to reduce the need to move people in cars and buses. Taking advantage of those opportunities will require recognition of both the validity of e-learning and the reality of the environmental benefits.

Though remote learning and working is possible today and will be much more common in the coming years, most students will still attend classes in a school building. For those students and the institutions that serve them, radical efficiency improvements in transportation will be required to meet sustainability goals and manage rising costs. Bus fleets will require more fuel efficient vehicles that make use of cleaner, renewable energy sources. Already some schools are deploying hybrid-electric buses that use 40 percent less fuel and emit 90 percent less pollution than conventional buses. In some locations, bio-diesel fuel can be a realistic short-term alternative for existing buses.

These methods are just a few ways that education can spur change. Stay tuned for more ways to turn the conversation into action.

¹ Bernstein, Lenny, Bosch, et al, "Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report," Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. United Nations (2007) http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
² Particulates, alternatively referred to as particulate matter, aerosols or fine particles, are tiny particles of solid or liquid suspended in a gas. (Wikipedia, March 2008)
³ Jon Birger, "Oil From a Stone," CNN, Nov. 1st, 2007, http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/30/magazines/fortune/Oil_from_stone.fortune/index2.htm
⁴ Kahn, Joseph and Yardley, Jim, "As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes," The New York Times, Aug. 27, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
⁵ Koch, James V. "An Economic Analysis of Textbook Pricing and Textbook Markets," ACSFA College Textbook Cost Study Plan Proposal, September 2006, http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/acsfa/kochreport.pdf
⁶ Morris, Peter. "College Textbook Prices Up 186 Percent since 1986..." The Business Shrink, Jan. 22, 2008, http://www.businessshrink.biz/psychologyofbusiness/2008/01/22/college-textbook-prices-up-186-since-1986-enter-revolution
⁷ TakePart.com is a self-described social action network where you connect actions to entertainment to make change, http://www.takepart.com/act
⁸"LEED Rating Systems," U.S. Green Building Council, http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1586

*This story is from Converge magazine's Winter 2008 issue.