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Even in a still struggling economy, green building policymaking continues. To celebrate some of the impressive progress this year, USGBC partnered with the National Ca…
Sowing Seattle Seeds for the Green Apple Day of Service
Emily Knupp
Grassroots Outreach
Center for Green Schools
Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Seattle for our very first Day of Service project. I joined the Seattle Mariners, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Sounders and Seattle Storm, along with Washington Green Schools and Seattle Public Schools, the Green Sports Alliance, Skanska, community volunteers and students from Denny International Middle School and Chief Sealth High School to conduct a service project to gain momentum leading up to the official Green Apple Day of Service on Sept. 29.
The goal for the day was to expand the garden. We were tasked with building three plant beds and filling them with compost, soil, and plants, installing shelves in the tool shed and building a few benches. There were 22 middle and high school students there to join including the garden clubbers and some of the school’s athletes, new Seattle Public Schools Superintendent José Banda, an amazing crew from Skanska, the Washington Green Schools program, Cedar Grove Composting who even donated a truckload of composted soil, as well as players past and present from the Mariners, Seahawks, Sounders and Storm.
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| Helping Lucas Luetge with our project |
In four hours we unloaded the soil, built three beds, two benches, planted kiwi, lavender, blueberries, strawberries and flowers, made an amazingly tasty lunch with ingredients from the garden, got really smelly and pretty much had the greatest day ever. The players were super engaged and excited to be there. I showed the Mariners relief pitcher Lucas Luetge (who pitched half an inning later that night!) how to plant a lavender bush and helped Superintendent Banda put a blueberry bush in the ground. They had a great time. The team from Skanska taught the kids about the company’s “Stretch and Flex” program which encourages job site safety and about being great advocates for Green Apple Day of Service.
This project realized everything Day of Service has the potential to be:
- A diverse group of students engaged and excited to get dirty and learn new things.
- Community organizations and companies partnering together for a great cause (including local celebs!)
- Local media coverage – West Seattle Herald as well as a couple of local news outlets and the sports radio station
- Hard work with tangible results and something the community put their sweat into, will maintain, and be proud of.
Start to finish, the trip to Seattle could not have been better. Our new friends from the Mariners, Skanska and the Green Sports Alliance treated us like family the entire week, and we even got to spend an evening on the owner’s suite at the Mariners game. It was awesome, but was really just a treat on top of the experience we had the day before yesterday.
Thanks to everyone who made this day such a success, and we’re look forward to many more projects like this to come!
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Setting Standards Of Sustainability: How Sandy Grove Middle School Can Serve As A Nationwide Model
Our ever growing population is driving an increased need for more educational facilities for future students. Likewise, as our population continues to grow, integrating sustainable principles into design and construction is becoming absolutely crucial. Without making a concerted move toward sustainability, future resources required for educating our nation’s children will not exist. Sandy Grove Middle School in Lumber Bridge, NC, is currently being built as a net-zero energy facility, one that will return more energy to the grid than it consumes.
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Center for Green Schools Fellows: The Year Ahead
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Our Green Schools Fellows have been hard at work in the Boston and Sacramento school districts, wrapping up their first years and looking forward to the 2012-2013 school year. They’ve made some incredible accomplishments so far, and we’re looking forward to the year ahead!
Sacramento City Unified School District update – Farah McDIll
The Value of Green Labels in the California Housing Market
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When shopping for a new car, one of the most prominent features on display is the miles-per-gallon (MPG) usage of the vehicle. There is an EnergyGuide label for dishwashers, clothes washers and other appliances, and an Energy Star label for the most efficient appliances. But when buying a home, there is usually no information on its energy efficiency — which is strange, considering the substantial impact that monthly expenditures on electricity, gas and water have on disposable income.
The Road to #Greenbuild is Paved in Social Media
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Greenbuild is finally making its way to San Francisco this November – and us Bay Area locals are really excited. The conference theme is aptly “@ Greenbuild,” referencing the mindboggling array of Internet and technology companies headquartered here in the Bay Area. The big names include Google, Yahoo, Twitter (who’s co-founder, Biz Stone, will join us at the Greenbuild opening plenary), LinkedIn, Yelp, and YouTube.
The Road to #Greenbuild is Paved in Social Media
Authored by:
Feature image:
Greenbuild is finally making its way to San Francisco this November – and us Bay Area locals are really excited. The conference theme is aptly “@ Greenbuild,” referencing the mindboggling array of Internet and technology companies headquartered here in the Bay Area. The big names include Google, Yahoo, Twitter (who’s co-founder, Biz Stone, will join us at the Greenbuild opening plenary), LinkedIn, Yelp, and YouTube.
The Road to #Greenbuild is Paved in Social Media
Authored by:
Feature image:
Greenbuild is finally making its way to San Francisco this November – and us Bay Area locals are really excited. The conference theme is aptly “@ Greenbuild,” referencing the mindboggling array of Internet and technology companies headquartered here in the Bay Area. The big names include Google, Yahoo, Twitter (who’s co-founder, Biz Stone, will join us at the Greenbuild opening plenary), LinkedIn, Yelp, and YouTube.
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Director’s Corner: Where We Learn Matters
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Following a recent speaking engagement, I was approached by a young teacher who asked me how she could convince her school to go green. She told me that her classroom has one broken window that was positioned directly above the dumpster, her ceiling tiles are covered in mold, there’s a funky smell that she can never seem to find the source of and there is a flimsy partition that separates her class from the next, creating a noisy and chaotic learning environment and not nearly enough space for the 55 students crammed into her classroom.
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The First Day of the Rest of Our Movement
Since starting at USGBC four years ago, I have encountered a lot of firsts: my first experience working in a LEED certified space (and my first cubicle!), earning my first professional credential, my first Greenbuild; and that milestone of many young professionals – my first business trip. It also happened to be my first tornado.