By Nathaniel Allen
Center for Green Schools Advocacy Lead

On Wednesday, May 1, the USGBC South Carolina Chapter hosted an event to strategize pathways to bring political common ground on green schools to the Palmetto State. The event was held in Columbia at the LEED Gold Thomas Cooper Library at the University of South Carolina, and featured approximately 75 attendees.

South Carolina State Senator Phil Leventis (D- Sumter), a longtime champion of green schools and member of the 50 for 50 Green Schools Caucus Initiative National Advisory Council, keynoted the event, describing in detail the success he and his colleague ...

In honor of National Teacher Day, we asked some of our staff members to tell us who their favorite teachers are. We had an original post here, but the results kept pouring in! Read on to find out from more of our staff who their favorite teachers are.

Margo Street, Manager, Community Leadership DevelopmentMy favorite teacher is my husband, Timothy Street! He is a DCPS kindergarten teacher at Daniel E. Payne Elementary on the Hill. I admire him for bringing light and love to these children's lives everyday. And guess what - the local NCR Chapter recently adopted Payne ...

By Ben Macrory
Green School Bali

It’s been a very exciting few weeks at Green School Bali since the Center for Green School’s Rachel Gutter visited and presented us with the award as “2012 Greenest School on Earth.” There were close to 400 students, staff, parents and friends gathered in our beautiful open-air bamboo coliseum for an Earth Day assembly, and only a small handful had any inkling about the announcement beforehand. Lots of hooting and hollering ensued!

We’re coming towards the end of just our fourth year of operation, and on many levels we are still a ...

By Molly Hislop, LEED® Green Associate
Director of Programs and Marketing, Green Education Foundation (GEF)

As we celebrate National Bike or Walk to School Day today, it is important to recognize how our culture has changed transportation behaviors. In 1969, riding your bike or walking to school was commonplace, and nearly 50 percent of kids chose that mode of transportation. By 2009, that number dropped to just 13 percent. What is causing kids and their families to opt for a four-wheeled ride rather than a walkable route? How can we help reverse this pattern to protect our environment and promote healthy ...

In honor of National Teacher Day, we asked some of our staff members to tell us who their favorite teachers are. What did we learn? That a lot of our staff members have moms who are teachers! Read below to see who some of our best teachers are, and what they did to inspire us. 

Vanessa Santos, Community College Specialist: There are a lot of things I don’t remember about my life when I was in the third grade, but I do remember being in Ms. Grasso’s class. She taught us our multiplication tables and how to write an ...

By Vanessa Santos
Community Colleges Specialist

Community colleges serve as the centers of educational opportunity, collectively providing millions of individuals – regardless of their wealth, cultural background or experience – an accessible place where they can gain the skills and knowledge necessary to become successful professionals.

As the economy continues to change, and as getting and maintaining a job is at the forefront of almost everyone’s mind, the role that community colleges play in educating a skilled workforce that can keep up with these changes and drive local sustainable economies is even more critical. Yet, as many colleges are facing ...

By Andrea Trimble, LEED AP BD+C
Senior Program Manager, Green Building Services
Harvard University

Harvard University recently achieved an important green building milestone: our 75th LEED certification, representing over 2.4 million square feet of our campus in LEED New Construction, Commercial Interiors, Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance and Homes systems.

We have estimated that over 11,000 people on campus work, learn or live in a LEED Certified project. Our focus on building and operating greener buildings has demonstrated that supporting the environment and public health ultimately supports our research and teaching mission by conserving resources, increasing efficiency and reducing costs. ...

By Rachel Gutter
Director, Center for Green Schools

Those of you who have seen me speak recently know that I have had some pretty disparaging things to say about polar bears. Not because I have anything against polar bears (though I did visit a school in Alaska once where they had to put up a big fence to keep the bears from eating students), but because I don’t believe that polar bears are deserving of being the icon for sustainability, or even climate change.

I know, I know - videos of polar bears hopping from iceberg to iceberg are heartbreaking, ...

By Rachel Gutter
Director, Center for Green Schools

Last month, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Beijing, China for the 8th International Conference on Green & Energy Efficient Building to discuss the green schools movement. Although there are so many implicit differences between the U.S. and China – the language and culture are incredibly diverse from ours – I tested my assumption that healthy, high performing kids are a universal value that requires no translation.

At last year’s conference, USGBC’s President, CEO and Founding Chair Rick Fedrizzi issued a call to Chinese developers and builders to make ...

By Emily Knupp
Grassroots Outreach

The Center for Green Schools had barely begun to take our plans for Green Apple Day of Service on Sept. 29 beyond water cooler conversations, when two powerhouses came forward asking how they could help: Interface Global and Harvard University.

When two sustainability leaders want to know how they can be a part of your next big idea, you start to think you might be onto something.

With 75 LEED Certified buildings, you might call Harvard an early – and aggressive – adopter. So it shouldn’t have surprised us when a tweet came over the ...