Dwindling financial resources have brought metropolitan school districts to their knees, cutting elective studies, losing athletics programs, and silencing music.  In some cities and rural areas the effects are even more troubling as schools are closed and students are crammed into shrinking classrooms.  Schools are frantically searching for viable ways to reduce overhead by more effectively managing their resources, and everyone can help.

Many school administrators think that they’ve effectively drained the pool of potential cost cutting and green measures, but green ideas are emerging up from untapped springs of student creativity.  Here are a few favorites:

Landscape maintenance:  Families volunteer for weekend duties like weeding, trash collecting and seasonal maintenance.  Some resourceful parents even take their lawn tractors to the school to maintain playing fields.  Science and environmentally minded teachers rotate weekends with the families to keep the team focused and manage the legal requirements from the school district’s standpoint.  These “grassroots” groups are tossing out the chemical cocktails utilized by the commercial industry in favor of natural herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.

Janitorial services:  Students are getting involved in cleaning up the cesspool of toxic agents traditionally used by school maintenance crews.  Science teachers work with the students to develop green products in science labs that disinfect, clean and shine using non-toxic, all natural ingredients in distilled water bases.  Some innovators even set up mini-stills in their labs to produce their own distilled water and kids get extra credit for participating in the experiments.

Paperless classrooms:  In an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the classroom, some innovative teachers have established electronic homework and study manuals.  Students are encouraged to spend free time in school libraries or tech centers where they have access not only to course materials, but also to internet resources.   Students can file their homework online and receive private, electronic feedback from their teachers.  This allows students and teachers alike to devote more classroom time to exploring new ideas.

Parent/teacher conferences:  It has always been challenging for parents to take time from busy work and home schedules to obtain routine updates on their child’s school performance.  It’s imperative that parents know how their kids are doing, but is there a better way?  Yes!  Some schools offer parent/teacher conference calls or instant message services as alternatives to face to face meetings that guzzle precious fuel as the parents travel from work or home to school and back.

Healthy meals:  If your school does not already maintain its own fruit and vegetable gardens for its lunch program, suggest that they start one.  Take some time to look around campus for likely garden plots, and then talk with your teacher, school counselor or an administrator to find out how to make your idea take root.  Students can devote time … say, 10 minutes a week … to weeding, watering and picking the bounty that will reduce food costs and improve the nutritional value of school meals.

Bathroom habits:  By far, the greatest water consumption of any school (or business, for that matter) is in the bathroom.  It also has the potential to harbor huge colonies of bacteria.  Many local big box businesses or even independent plumbing supply houses are willing to pitch in with devices that virtually eliminate “hands on” activities.  Auto-flush toilets, sensory driven faucets and touch-free paper towel dispensers reduce water and paper consumption and can save a school thousands in operating costs each year.

Think you have a good idea?  Talk it over with your parents or a trusted teacher.  Ask your friends if they’d get involved or join one of your school’s civic groups.  It’s a great opportunity to experiment with passive power sources, such as wind and sunlight, while setting the bar higher for other schools and businesses in your area.

Photo by: Chad McDermott -
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