School is starting up soon and it’s time to start planning your green school efforts. Tree Hugging Family has covered a lot of school topics here already, but this year I’ll be bringing in some new cool ideas, green school gear, and tips. If you’ve got a specific question about greening your school experience (for you or the kids) this year, this would be a good time to ask. Leave a question in the comments and I’ll try to cover it soon.

That said, before we take off for the 2009-2010 school year, let’s look at some past resources plus a …read more

Continuing on with our green school audit this week, we’re going to take a look at the school grounds. We actually just completed our green audit of home yards – so, you can shift much of that audit into a school grounds audit, only on a larger scale.
School grounds are really important, and a tough green issue. Many schools have a large amount of ground space and want it to look good. However, this doesn’t mean your school needs to use harmful chemicals and pesticides. A big yard can be just as pretty when treated organically.
Questions to consider that are …read more

For this week’s weekly green audit, we’re going to continue with green school audits. With the server issues last week, we didn’t quite finish. This is actually the fourth time I’ve tried to post about school transportation; a topic that appears to shut down this blog
I read in a book once that if you attend school for 12 years that’s over 5,000 trips to and from your school. If you multiply that number by all the students you go to school with; well, that’s quite a lot of transporting to and from school. This week we’re talking about …read more

Let’s see what you you may have missed this week…
Instead of a green audit, this week we looked at green yard renovations. We checked out: Composting for Soil Health, Greening Your Lawn, and Choosing the Right Plants.
Make Your Own Dowel Vase Cover
Recycled kitchenware in amazing colors.
How to test your dishes for lead
Bake a greener birthday cake plus some great cake recipes.
Where to get used coffee grounds for your garden – and why in the heck you would want to.

14 Ways You Can Love the Earth
Great green architecture links
Free Green Home Poster
We hugged (and learned about) the Cheetah …read more

This week’s green audit is going to be kid specific; although adults are certainly welcome to participate. We’re going to be looking at schools, or rather the greening of schools.
What we’ll be looking at this week will include:

How schools can protect resources such as paper, water, and electricity.
What’s scary and not so green about the school cafeteria.
Schools supplies and how they affect sustainability.
The school grounds; including cleaning and maintenance.
School-based traffic and transportation.

We’ll also take a look at some very green schools, and a few other random issues that affect school greenness. I’ll offer some easy checklist formats this week, so …read more