Most teachers hand out a list of supplies needed for class during the first few days of school.  Ask your child’s teacher if you can create a green supply list and hand it out during back-to-school night (on recycled paper of course).  Eco-friendly school supplies can be found in mainstream markets and are priced competitively with similar products.  Staples offers eco-friendly notebooks, composition books, writing pads and sticky notes made from 80 percent sugar cane waste.  They also carry pencils made from recycled tires, crayons made from solar energy, and pens made from recycled plastic.  Just about any item on a traditional list can be found in an affordable, eco-friendly version.  Visit one of the large supply stores near your school, take notes, and share your finds.

Extra Credit: Help teacher set up a website where supply list can be posted as well as all the other traditional handouts.  Getting information online saves paper.

Party Responsibly

Start the year off with a durable party goods drive.  Instead of asking for parents to bring in disposable plates, forks, and napkins for each holiday party, request that each family donate one durable place setting for the teacher to keep with her classroom.  Purchase a large plastic Rubbermaid type bin for storage and let it double as a washtub.  In our classrooms, we assign student helpers to clean the dishes and explain that by doing so they are helping to conserve natural resources.  Allow the teacher to keep the durable goods for the years to come and remind parents and students that they have created a stewardship program that will last for years.

Extra Credit: Teach kids to conserve water and energy while washing dishes.  Fill tub with soapy cold water, scrub each item then turn water on and quickly and rinse.  Do not let water run the entire time and by using cold water you save the energy it would take to heat it.

Take on Trash

One of the least controversial environmental issues in which a parent can engage students is the ubiquitous presence of trash.  In the lower grades at my school we spend much of the year brainstorming on ways we can reduce trash around our campus.  Since we live near the ocean, the trash that is scattered around our school eventually will make its way down the storm drain and harm marine wildlife.  In areas that are not near the ocean, students can learn about how birds mistake small pieces of trash as food and ingest it.  As a classroom volunteer there are a number of opportunities to get kids thinking about this issue.

Suggest that students take a walk around campus with you and supply each child with their own paper bag.  Have students collect some debris around the campus or bring some clean trash from home (bottle caps, granola bar wrappers, juice box straws) and instruct kids to create a self-portrait with the trash.  We provide each kid with an 8×10 piece of cardboard and some glue.  The students see first hand how much trash ends up on the ground and then create something interesting with it.

Extra Credit: Use picked up trash to make a “keep our campus clean” mural and hang it someplace where the whole school can see it.

Trash Patrol

Kindergarteners are the perfect group to encourage good stewardship practices.  They are old enough to understand the harm trash presents to the environment but not too old to feel burdened by a task like keeping the campus clean.  Purchase a supply of latex-free gloves and small trash bags and carve out an hour every week for Kindergarteners to scour the campus for unwanted trash.  Ask your school’s administrator for a visible spot in our library where the results of the weekly cleanups can be posted in pounds.  Kindergarteners will learn about scales and weight measurements while feeling a sense of pride because the results are prominently displayed.

Extra Credit: Report the year-end results to your local paper with a photo of your trash patrol group and celebrate the amount of waste that was not able to harm any wildlife.

Waste Free Class

Challenge students and their parents to see if you can create a waste-free classroom.  Make sure your classroom has several recycling containers.  One for paper waste, one for plastic items and aluminum cans and large box labeled “scratch paper” for students to put all papers used on only one side.  Have students take paper from “scratch” box when doodling or working on less formal projects.  If recycling is done properly, true waste products should be minimal.

Extra Credit: Help students carry the waste-free mantra into the lunchroom.  Offer suggestions to parents on how to pack lunch items in durable containers rather than using paper bags and plastic baggies.

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Four years ago I moved to my new home. It’s a typical suburban home found anywhere: grass to the foundational plantings and driveway on the side of the house creating a separation from the neighbor’s yard. Big beautiful shade trees in the back yard offer cooling shade in the summer, and there are a few perennial plants and a lot of creeping English ivy, compliments of one of my neighbor’s.

At my previous home I had a large fenced in vegetable garden in the back yard and an equally large medicinal herb garden in the front yard. It was my intention to recreate another vegetable garden but was limited in the back of this new place by lack of sun. I hesitated at first to put the garden in front, not wanting to “upset” the status quo in town. But that thought didn’t hold much weight with me as I really didn’t care what anyone thought of my plan and, furthermore, I would make a loud statement that what we need more than grass is food! My front yard would be far more attractive and productive than the Jones’.

I began with four 4 feet by 8 feet raised bed boxes the first year; by the end of the season I added 2 more and the following year I added yet 3 more. Last year, I removed one of the pathways and filled in between 3 of the boxes for more growing space. Also, I have: enclosed the entire garden with a sweet little fence; planted blueberries and raspberries along the inside of the fence; built 2 rainwater collection systems that hold 300 gallons of water — which supplies my drip irrigation system that waters the fruits and vegetables; built a trellis along the west side of the house to support a kiwi vine; yanked out a couple of ewes alongside the foundation on the side of the house to plant potatoes; and installed some fruit trees out back. In the late season I use cold frames on top of the existing boxes and create temporary greenhouses to cover parts of the garden to extend the growing season so I can have fresh greens in winter.

Now, I live on a busy street that is 5 houses down from a traffic light. During heavy traffic times it is not unusual for the cars to be backed-up in front of my house, so putting the garden in the front yard wasn’t just going to be visible to my immediate neighbors but to anyone who passed on that main artery around town. As it happened, commuters began shouting out their windows: “I don’t know what you’re doing but it looks great,” or “Your garden is beautiful,” and “Great job.” I’ve waved people in and invited them for a look; several of them did just that. Anyone that walked by and made a comment has been invited in for a closer look. I’ve offered up tomatoes and flowers to anyone who has shown interest and I’ve had strangers come knock on the door to fulfill their curiosity. Most important to me were the immediate neighbors who came by to meet me and share their impressions. For the past 2 seasons I was chosen by the town garden club to receive “The Random Acts of Beauty Award.”

My garden feeds me on a deeply spiritual level and from what I can tell delights strangers and friends who like to tell me stories about their gardens or those from their pasts. I have been vegetable gardening for 25+ years and it is never the same from year to year. Each season offers me the opportunity to expand my garden palette; stretching the limited amount of space I have, building new structures, and trying new techniques, and all the while producing food! I am always learning, taking workshops, doing trainings, reading books or just copying ideas I’ve seen. So … if you have a hankering to put your hands in the soil, start with some of the following ideas.

First, dream: Plan your garden with no limitations or boundaries, and fantasize how magical a space you can create. Don’t worry about planting something that could take years to fruit, it is just one part of your creation. Trees, shrubs, or vines can take years to fruit, but time in the garden is relative. There will always be ongoing projects that will have your attention, so watching and waiting for a tree to fruit is not going to keep your attention for long. The garden is a project that is on-going, will materialize in stages and keep shifting, so start with a bold idea and tackle it in chunks. Be open to shifts and changes as they arise in the garden; remember that most plants can be moved if so desired.

Dream of pathways and arbors, espaliers and living walls — whimsical thinking is a fun place to start. If it is appropriate, how about chickens and bees which can play an integral part in your garden. Chickens are thought of as living machines as they eat scraps and bugs and turn them into compost. They clean, till, and fertilize land that will be ready for planting. They make eggs, meat, and entertainment.Think about collecting rainwater, drip irrigation, and compost bins (homemade). Plant flowers in the vegetable garden to beautify and bring in the pollinators. Put vegetables in the perennial beds for attractive interests (e.g., Bright Lights Chard or Red Russian Kale). Grow medicinal herbs now, even if you don’t know how to use them; often times, they are attractive and will give you medicine when you are ready. Some examples are purple cone flower (Echinacea purpurea), marigold (Calendula officinalis), anise hyssop (agastache foeniculumMatricaria chamomilla), then when the time is right you can play around with making teas, extracts, and salves.

Collaborate with your neighbors: You say you have a lot of ideas but don’t have the space? Ask your neighbor to grow the squash and you will provide the tomatoes. Grow flowers and small fruiting vegetables that will ooze over the fence to attract new people to your garden. Entice a passerby with a cherry tomato; this is a way to engage neighbors you may not already know. Chatting about what’s growing and offering a snack or flower is an invitation to share gardening information which could then lead to trading ideas, tools, and surplus.

Reuse materials: Start dumpster-diving to gather building materials. Scrap wood (untreated) can be used to construct beds or build platforms for water barrels, bamboo for trellises, wire and fencing for binding and making art in the garden. Also, if you know that your neighbor doesn’t use chemicals on their lawn, you may want their grass clippings to use as mulch. Don’t have enough trees to meet your leaf needs? Just walk down the street and load up your wheel barrow and behold the abundance lying in the streets on leaf collection days. Start a leaf mold compost pile. Don’t forget the bounty awaiting you at your neighborhood coffee shop; they are only too happy to save you their coffee grinds for your hungry compost piles.

Containers: These are your next option when you are out of space or need to create space. Save large cans; rectangular olive tins, cafeteria sized tomato cans, barrels, old boots and shoes, and metal garbage cans all make viable options for growing. Consider putting a big container on caster wheels if you want the option of moving your container.

Shrubbery: So how about those foundation plantings that were put in when the house was built and are now covering the windows? Sometimes they are invisible — we don’t realize that they are taking-up valuable food growing space. Yank ‘em! Pull out that tired old ewe and install blueberry shrubs, currants, or strawberries. The foundation plantings can still be attractive and serve more importantly as a source of food. Edible landscaping should be the lens in which you see foundational planting.

Edible Forests: Plant trees that will produce nuts and fruits, and incorporate vegetables and fruits, such as strawberries, underneath while they are still maturing and have access to sunlight. By doing this, you are again maximizing space and expanding the variety of food in your yard. Also, form a hedgerow of trees and shrubs to break the wind and create habitat for animals and insects.

Living Cooling Walls: Grow vines along the house. Kiwi is a vine that can be trained to grow up a trellis that can be attached to the house. Planted on the south or west side, it will flourish in the heat while providing a cooling action. Trees planted close to the house will dramatically change the interior temperature of a home.

Extend the Seasons: Build a mobile cold frame to get a jump on the season or for season extension later in the year. Temporary hoop houses are very inexpensive and easy to build and work great over a raised bed box. That same structure can be covered with an agricultural cloth to keep the unwanted insects out and protect your crop from damage.

In sum, free your mind and explore what can take shape in your garden. Do the radical thing and take control of how and where your food is grown and own it! I wish you late day showers, delicious foods, visits from bees, and dirty hands.

Wendy has been gardening for more than 25 years. She has grown herbs for the herbal medicine industry, maintained perennial gardens, been a gardener for a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and has most recently started a service called The Front Yard Farmer in which she installs, maintains and teaches vegetable gardening to homeowners, apartment dwellers and businesses. For more information about her business, visit www.thefrontyardfarmer.net.

The Quick Facts: By instituting a lunchtime recycling program, schools can take an active role in reducing their waste stream.  Our school cut our lunchtime waste output in half.  With some good planning and some dedicated students, your school can reduce waste on campus, encourage positive environmental stewardship, and save some cash along the way.

If you are looking to green your school, a good first step is to institute a school-wide, lunchtime waste recycling program.  With some good planning and some dedicated students, your school can reduce waste on campus, encourage positive environmental stewardship, and save some cash along the way.

The first step, of course, is to gather interested volunteers.  Try forming a student-run green team to head-up the plan or ask a teacher if they might take on the effort as a class project.

In order to achieve a measurable goal, you need to know what you are dealing with at the start.  The project should be kicked-off with a waste audit.  Students will only be able to build a recycling system if they know the types of trash with which they are dealing.

To perform a waste audit, after a normal lunch period, students should count how many bags of trash were produced.  Then they need to dig into those bags (with latex-free gloves) to see what’s inside of them.  All trash should be separated into five piles: recyclables (i.e., aluminum cans and plastic bottles that can be redeemed at recycling centers for cash, depending on your state), paper items such as brown paper bags or cardboard (like the cardboard box of a “Lunchable”), non-redeemable plastics like yogurt containers, compostable food scraps, and true non-recyclable waste such as plastic baggies and paper napkins.

Once students have a handle on how much and the types of trash they generate, they need to find out what types of recyclables their city accepts.  For instance, in San Diego County, some cities take #5 plastic containers while others do not.  Most likely this will warrant a phone call to the waste hauler with whom your school has contracted.

Once the team understands the types of waste that can be properly recycled, they need to create bins and informational signs for each.  The bins and signs should be placed in a central location in the lunch area next to the traditional waste receptacles.  All trash and recycle bins should be kept in one area so that students begin to develop a consistent waste routine in the lunchroom.  For example, a stand-alone trash can near the exit may tempt a student to toss a recyclable in the trash because a recycle bin is not nearby.

As part of their efforts, students should determine if they would prefer the waste hauler to pick-up redeemable recyclables or if the students would rather collect and turn-in the plastic bottles and aluminum cans for cash value (again, depending on your state).  Many schools keep these monies to pay for other green programs.

For schools just embarking on green efforts, food composting may prove too ambitious to include on a first attempt at revamping your lunchtime waste program.  Once students are acclimated to separating their lunchtime trash, adding in this new component is easy.  To successfully implement food composting, the school will need either a compost heap or worm-composting bin to process the food scraps, along with bins to collect the food waste and signs to inform students.

With a working lunchtime plan in place, the team leading the effort will need to teach their fellow students how to use the new bins.  A school assembly announcing the plan or a student-made movie played as a commercial in each classroom are great ways to inform their classmates.  The team can also create a catchy slogan and work it into campaign posters to hang in the cafeteria and other visible areas around campus (perhaps involving art classes as well).

After working through some kinks and following the plan for a few months, conduct a final waste audit that measures the amount of real trash that has accumulated in the non-recyclable waste bin.  If the reduction is considerable enough, your principal may be able to scale back on the cost of waste removal.  In our school district, we were able to cancel one day a week of trash pick-up.

Report your success to the student body, along with the total amount of money earned by collecting redeemables.  The team can call or write their local newspaper(s) or television station(s) to seek media coverage to inform their community.

For tools and more detailed information about how to plan a waste reduction program visit the following websites: http://www.epa.gov/osw/partnerships/wastewise/plan-program.htm

http://www.epa.gov/osw/education/pdfs/resource.pdf

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States has seen a decrease in the number of physically active children, while the number of children who are deemed overweight has increased.  A brisk walk to school increases blood circulation and the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain.  So, in addition to adding regular physical activity, which has proven health benefits, walk-to-school students arrive at school more alert and ready to learn.

While the learning and health benefits are reasons enough to institute a walk-to-school program, the benefits to the environment are equally attractive.  Many schools have a designated “drop-off” or “pick-up” zone in front of the entrance.  Harmful emissions from idling cars find their way into the air and the lungs of school children as they exit and enter their campus.  This harmful cloud contains an emissions cocktail of nitrogen oxide, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds.  If these pollutants sound familiar, they should.  They are the smog-causing greenhouse gases that wreak havoc in our environment.  Less cars passing through the drop-off zone translates to healthier air quality around the school campus.

The families who have joined us in our walk-to-school program look forward to Wednesday as a chance to socialize with friends and catch-up on the latest school news.  One of our neighborhood team captains has also organized a mom’s running club.  Directly after the start of school she plans a run through our local streets that eventually leads back to our houses.  I have even heard one parent use our acronym as a verb, as in, “Are we WOW-ing tomorrow?”

If you would like to encourage walking at your school, here are some hints to help get you started:

• Select several routes to school from each neighborhood and plan key pick-up points on each route.  Make certain the route is safe by ensuring that it is lined with sidewalk in good repair and that there are safe crossing areas, if necessary.
• Find a few volunteers from nearby neighborhoods to serve as team captain.  They will be responsible for organizing those who share the same route to school.
• Have team captains notify each family on the route with a central meeting place and departure time.  In our neighborhood we meet at a central corner at 7:30am, which allows us exactly half an hour to get to school.  Those who live closer to school on our route know that we’ll pass their house at approximately the same time each walking day and can join-in as we walk by.  Building-in a time cushion will help if you have a few lollygaggers.
• Make certain that there is plenty of parent supervision if walking with young children or if major intersection(s) must be crossed.
• To promote the program, have kids hang signs around campus explaining the benefits of walking or place a paragraph in your school’s newsletter.

For more information about starting a walk-to-school program at your school visit the following websites:

(http://www.walktoschool.org/faq/index.cfm, International Walk to School Day — in the USA)

(http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/kidswalk/, Center for Disease Control and Prevention website, “Kids Walk to School.”)

(http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=2229, Environmental Defense Fund website, an environmental organization.)