Sustainable School News

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                  Healthy Schools – Healthy Environments

The Apple is the monthly newsletter from the Sustainable Oregon Schools Initiative,
and is prepared by the project team at the Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA). 
This newsletter is available in PDF form at http://sustainableschools.org/about/newletter.htm

Spring 2010

In this Issue:

SOSI Workshops for Oregon’s Education Service Districts (ESDs)
In the last months we presented two-day regional workshops in Redmond, Pendleton,
Medford and Portland for ESD teams. While they all included the same basic content,
Sustainability Education and Green Jobs, each one was a bit different. The EPA-funded
project’s goals were to inform the attendees, foster more sustainability education activities
in ESDs, and to identify opportunities for ESD involvement. The participating teams included
ESD, school district and…

SOSI workshops with Cloud Institute
In February we presented two workshops with Jaimie Cloud of the Cloud Institute for
Sustainability Education. These were well attended by an enthusiastic audience of
administrators, teachers and varied other community members, and we’ll be creating
future opportunities to partner with the Cloud Institute…

Outdoor School Prepares High School Students
A recent ESD workshop was hosted by the Multnomah Education Service District at one
of their Outdoor School sites. The program utilizes high school leaders to work with the
students and these same high school leaders were there to teach us for an afternoon.
They split us up and gave each small group a sample of the classes that they lead for
students, then shared what the Outdoor School Program has meant for them and their
future. It was truly inspiring. The program has given them leadership skills and…

Summer Education for Sustainability Opportunities
There are a number of opportunities offered this summer that relate to education for
sustainability. For more details about any of these and additional events visit the…

Support SOSI and the Apple!
If you find this newsletter helpful, please help support it with you tax deductible donation
today! To learn about individual donation opportunities and corporate sponsorship visit
http://www.sustainableschools.org/about/support.htm

Oregon Environmental Literacy Taskforce
The Oregon Environmental Literacy Task Force was created in 2009 with House Bill 2544.
Also known as the “No Oregon Child Left Inside Act,” this bill created an eleven-member
Task Force charged with developing the Oregon Environmental Literacy Plan and reporting
back to…

The Oregon School Facilites Taskforce
The 2009 Oregon legislative session also passed House Bill 2013, which created an Oregon
School Facilities Task Force to conduct a study of the status of public school facilities and
make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly. An initial report was submitted to the
special session of the…

Green and Sustainable Jobs
We hear lots about “green jobs”, but just what does that mean? It turns out that Oregon
has an official definition:
A green job is one that provides a service or produces a product in any of the following
categories:
1. Increasing energy efficiency
2. Producing renewable energy
3. Preventing, reducing, or mitigating environmental degradation
4. Cleaning up and restoring the natural environment
5. Providing education, consulting, policy promotion, accreditation, trading and offsets,
    or similar services supporting any of the other categories…

Zero Waste Strategies
SOSI was invited this Spring to give a presentation for the Oregon School Facility
Managers Association Conference about Zero Waste. Have you considered your
waste targets lately? What amount of waste do you and your management consider
to be desirable?? Waste over time is not sustainable for many reasons. Consider a
long-term zero waste target…

New Journal of Sustainability Education
See the inaugural issue including an article from Oregon, on their website:
http://www.journalofsustainabilityeducation.org/wordpress/

Upcoming Events
Check the SOSI website for details and updates:
http://www.sustainableschools.org/about/events.htm.

Thank You to our Supporters
Contributions from you and your organizations make this initiative happen. Please
consider contributing. Details at http://www.sustainableschools.org/about/support.htm.

Platinum Level 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Gold Level
Bonneville Power Administration*
Coastwide Laboratories*
Oregon Community Foundation – Schamp Family Fund*
Oregon Department of State Lands
Oregon School Employees Association*
Portland General Electric*

Silver Level 
Bank of America Charitable Foundation
Catlin Gabel School*
Metro Regional Government*
Oregon Dept. of Community Colleges and Workforce Development
Oregon Department of Education*
Oregon Education Association

The_Apple_Newsletter

Healthy Schools – Healthy Environments

December 2009

In this Issue:

Sustainability Education Week
This past November 9-13 was the first national Sustainability Education Week. The U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development invited students, teachers, schools, colleges of education, and[...]

2nd Presentation for Oregon Board of Education
Together with Art Paz, a member of the Oregon Board of Education, we were asked to invite a Sustainability Education panel for the Board’s August planning retreat that could help address how to move forward within[...]

Info-Pages on Education for Sustainability (EfS)
SOSI has created an info page that introduces EfS, which can be accessed here. Everybody in a school district can support EfS, but just how you do it depends on[...]

Sustainability Education moving forward in Washington State
At Washington State’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the Education for Environment and Sustainability Program has been a leader with their Sustainability Education work. Recently content standards standards were adopted that[...]

Support SOSI and the Apple!
If you find this newsletter helpful, please help support it with you tax deductible donation today! To learn about individual donation opportunities and corporate sponsorship visit http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/2abd497990.

National Sustainability Education Standards, Version 3
Version 3 of the Education for Sustainability (EfS) student learning standards developed by the K-12 and Teacher Education Sector Team of the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development are now available. Download here:
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/fbed5f579e.

EfS Webinar
If you missed the recent EDUCATING FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN K-12 SCHOOLS WEBINAR from the US Partnership, don’t worry! Below is the link to watch it for the first time or again!
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/b79cfe5ff2/AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=40910402&rKey=6ac966f4db035e17

Sustainability Education Summer Institute (SESI)
The Sustainability Education Summer Institute (SESI) was launched this past July at Islandwood in Washington State. The 3-day event was so popular that it sold out. It provided an excellent opportunity to learn and to network with[...]

Education for Sustainable Development in the USA
A report submitted to the International Alliance of Leading Education Institutes describes the status of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the USA. It focuses on formal (school-based) education at the[...]

Sustainable Sites
The Sustainable Sites Initiative is an interdisciplinary effort by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the United States Botanic Garden to create voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and[...]

Oregon Green Schools Association
The mission of the Oregon Green Schools Association is to assist Oregon schools in setting up, maintaining and recognizing effective, permanent waste reduction and resource efficiency programs that improve the school environment and the community. They are a great resource, ready to help[...]

Portland Public School’s da Vinci Middle School comples net-zero energy classroom
The 1500 sq. ft. building is the home to da Vinci Arts Middle School’s music program, housing a music room and 2 practice rooms. The innovative and ambitious design will result in[...]

First there was the Carbon Footprint, and now…the Water Footprint?
What’s your water footprint? Even as the greenest among us cut our showers short and let our toilets go yellow, we may be blissfully unaware that our household water use accounts for only 6 percent of the water that we consume[...]

National Walk + Bike to School Day, 2009
Schools from around Oregon participated in National Walk+Bike to School day this fall. See who: http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/f5191aab36

EPA Names Top 20 Green Powered Schools
The top Green Power Partner schools are buying nearly 113 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power annually, equivalent to carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) that would be produced from the electricity use of 11,000 American homes for one year. EPA’s Green Power Partnership[...]

BC middle school bike powers its computer lab
Abbotsford middle school has become the first school in Canada to power a computer lab with three sources of renewable power. A wind turbine, solar panels, and a bicycle-powered generator combine[...]

Upcoming Events
Check the SOSI website for details and updates: http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/51fa15f65b.

Thank You to our Supporters
Contributions from you and your organizations make this initiative happen. Please consider contributing. Details at http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/3c7f32db92.

Platinum Level
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency*

Gold Level
Bonneville Power Administration*, Coastwide Laboratories*, Dolphin Software*, Ecoworks Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation – Schamp Family Fund*, Oregon Department of Administrative Services, Oregon Department of Energy, Oregon Department of State Lands, Oregon School Employees Association*, Portland General Electric*

Silver Level
Artemis Foods, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Catlin Gabel School*, Community Development Student Group, Energy Trust of Oregon, Metro Regional Government*, Northwest Natural, Oregon Dept. of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, Oregon Department of Education*, Oregon Education Association, Portland Center Stage, Siltronic Corporation*

Bronze Level
Bake’s Binster, Bill Blosser*, Boora Architects*, City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Food Alliance, Harry & David*, Hot Lips Pizza, Johnson Controls, Neil Kelly*, Jack Nickerson, Rick Schulberg, Sandra Shotwell, Kent Snyder, SolarWorld, Trane Oregon

*Honor Roll Sponsors have contributed for more than one year.

December 2009 newsletter, in PDF

Previous issues can be viewed on the SOSI website at:
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/d730effe39

http://cts.vresp.com/c/?InternationalSustain/d34d9c441e/91592a1dfd/feaba089ec

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