Self promoting I know, but I do hope readers find both this article and this peer-reviewed, open access scholarly journal useful! My article Embedding your Green Message Through Asynchronous Learning was recently published in the Electronic Green Journal. This article summarizes a presentation I gave for the Amigos Library Services Going Green 2 online conference in November 2010. It discusses the idea of embedding green messages within your work, tasks, programs, tools, and teaching will passively or subtly inform others without being forceful. I discuss the large ten module research tutorial (Path) a team of us here at UNCG created covering concepts from forming a topic to citing sources, in which we embedded the theme of recycling, hoping users would become more environmentally literate while learning researching skills. The Electronic Green Journal has been published since 1994, semiannually by UCLA Library – think about submitting something to this journal yourself and share your knowledge and work!
Reviewers Needed January 23, 2012
A message worth passing along - textbook reviewers needed in all disciplines for education for sustainability!
Are you helping to educate for a more sustainable future? Help impact hundreds of thousands of students by infusing sustainability into textbooks from major publishers and get paid for your efforts.
Textbook publishers have seen the demand from educators and students for sustainability related materials in all disciplines. We have been asked by major textbook publishers, Cengage and McGraw-Hill, to gather names of potential reviewers who are interested in receiving remuneration for suggesting ideas about how to educate for a sustainable future. These ideas will be used as examples and themes in their textbook revisions. If you know of anyone in any academic discipline involved in educating for a sustainable future, please forward their names and contact info to EducationForASustainableFuture@gmail.com (include their discipline(s) in the subject line) and we will follow up with them about these exciting possibilities.
Thank you.
Debra Rowe, Ph.D.
President
U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development
www.uspartnership.org
Advisor
Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium
www.aashe.org/heasc
Founder and Facilitator
Disciplinary Associations Network for Sustainability
www.aashe.org/dans
2nd Annual Green Schools National Conference January 19, 2012
WHEN: February 27 – 29, 2012,
WHERE: Denver, Colorado
WHAT: national gathering of K-12 leaders and educators! Find out more and register here.
Also check out other upcoming green student competitions and challenges!
NBII website to be taken offline! January 12, 2012
Not such good news, but important to let you know so you can preserve some of the links:
Due to federal budget cuts, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) website at http://www.nbii.gov/portal/server.pt/community/nbii_home/236 will be removed from the Web on January 15, 2012 . Library of Congress/Web Archiving Team says that as part of a collaborative web archive project to archive U.S. Federal Government Websites, this site has been crawled by the Internet Archive as a part of that project (though not publicly accessible yet but hopefully it has been preserved.)
Thanks Maria Anna Jankowska for bringing this to my attention!
American Recycles Day 2011 Video Winner January 10, 2012
America Recycles Day (11-15-11), a program since 1997, the only nationally recognized day dedicated to the promotion of recycling in the United States gathered community groups in 35 state to embrace the message that plastic bags should not be treated like trash.Over 130 plastic bag collection activities were held to celebrate the annual event sponsored by Keep America Beautiful and aimed at raising public awareness to reduce, reuse and recycle throughout the year. America Recycles Day includes school-wide collection competitions, craft fairs showcasing items made from reused plastic bags, and earth patrols promoting sustainability with help from their toolkit. Read an article about the day. be sure to check out the winning video of 2011 America Recycles Day “Recycling is No Joke” video competition:
Creative Upcycling Decoration Ideas January 4, 2012
Thinking about next years holiday already? Maybe not but you could start now reusing old or broken decorations or natural items found around your yard. Get creative in the new year and have fun – at your school or public library, host a hands-on program for people to make upcycled/recycled holiday decorations You can even put out a table of goodies, welcoming back college kids to the library, allowing them to get creative and enjoy being back on campus.
The How Do I Recycle This? blog offered a great ideas in 2010 (button wreaths, origami decorations, tin stars, star lights, and other fabulous ideas.) and now offers more for end of 2011 like old newspaper ball ornaments, ornaments from old sweaters, Christmas trees from twigs, paper chains from old maps, and old newspaper wreaths.
Trees made of books! December 20, 2011
Christmas tree of Books at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland
Always enjoy seeing libraries using discarded books to create art, purses, or furniture! Go University of Warmia and Mazury of Olsztyn, Poland (and a Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia – a shout out to my ancestors in Poland!) for their lovely giant Christmas tree created from books. See the writeup in American Libraries or visit their website for more info and videos. Check out more trees made from books from my past blog posts too!
AASHE 2011 Conference Presentation Materials Now Available December 15, 2011
AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) now has available all of the conference posters, panels and presentations from 2011 conference in Pittsburgh last October and the 2010 in Denver. The conference materials are in one searchable database, searched by conference year, category, organization, session type and keyword. Blog posts, photos and videos can also be found on the AASHE conference website.
Green Schools Save Districts Money December 14, 2011
Education News offers a summary of recent “Local Leaders in Sustainability” report by the American Institute of Architects and the U.S. Green Building Council s
howing how greening schools is not only eco-friendly but saves districts money! One example given is school system in Mississippi saving $23,000 in energy costs in the past year by participating in the Tennessee Valley Authority Green School Initiative (a program called Green Power Switch which produces electricity from renewable sources).
The report explains the benefits of greening schools, explains roles local/state/federal can play to go green, as well as providing ideas and action plans to green schools.Green school improve student health, decrease absenteeism, improve student performances, keep teacher retention, can be used as a teaching tool, bring community together, save money by using less water and electricity, increase property values, and do not cost more than conventional schools!
One of the best things of the report are the Model Advocate and Profile of a Green School sections – real world examples of advocates for greening school, such as Mayor Riley of Charleston SC who believes so strongly in this endeavor he promote a now existing a one-cent sales tax to support green school construction! And Profiles of Green Schools like River Crest Elementary School in Hudson, WI - a green school constructed below the cost of a conventional school! The end of the report offers suggestion such as connecting with your local USGBC Chapter, creating a green school task force, hosting a green school summit, creating a green school challenge, hire a green school fellow, create a green energy school policy or green cleaning policy, tour other green schools, and info on lots of groups to check out.
Greening your Holidays December 9, 2011
Trees, cards, decorating, & gifts… looking for ways to be greener this holiday? This article by the Ian Somerhalder Foundation “How to be “Green” even during the busy holidays” offer a lot of good ideas. What kind of tree should you consider buying – real or fake? Did you know 1.5 billion cards were sent in 2010 in just the US – 93% of which were virgin pulp? For decorating, consider going green with LED and solar-powered alternatives - US Dept of Energy study says if everybody replaced conventional holiday light strings with LED lights at least 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved in one month. The article also suggests creating edible ornaments to hang outside and feed wildlife, making your own pine decorations & wreaths from trimming your trees or use other plants like holly or ivy, and rethinking any purchases of non recycled decorations. For gift giving, shopping,wrapping and shipping, there are a number of things to consider such as buying online to say gas, donate to a charity in someone’s name, researching the eco-friendliness of the company, or giving a green gift like a real plant or seed or a recycled/organic item. The article also offers insight for wrapping, shipping and packaging your gifts.
The IS foundation’s mission is to “to empower, educate and collaborate with people and projects to positively impact the planet and its creatures.” Check out this article for more information to make your holidays really green.
