BCGR - Green Classrooms
By: Chris Whited, KRBC News
Updated: March 31, 2009
We're all learning more about living life "green" these days. For many kids those lessons begin in the classroom. These days you'll find green classrooms in schools across the country. They're places where environmental education is both taught and practiced. It begins with the materials students use to learn.Teacher Megan Wolfe told us "we are use to using paper and pencils for recording our information and if you recycle the paper when the children are finished with it and have it go to a recycling center instead of to a landfill then that's a reuse of the materials." Students are taught which things can be reused and which have to be thrown away. They learn the difference between petroleum and wood based products they see everyday.
Conservation is an important part of the lesson plan too. "Make sure that you turn out the lights when you're leaving the classroom if you don't need them and teach the children to save water in the bathroom so that they're not running as much water. Just teaching them about how to use materials and how to avoid waste." explained Wolfe.
Whenever possible lessons are taught in natural light to keep electric costs down. Administrators say green classrooms save money for schools and for parents. School Administrator Vince Rizzo told our crew that "energy can be saved not just in one school but in a district. Not just in a district but in a region. Not just in a region but in a whole state! And you start adding those costs and you can see the cost of education goes down "
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