Community Meeting 4

Key Idea Synthesis

×

Provenance: Released by Participating Schools in MCC Community Meeting 4.
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

October 20, 2022, 3:30 - 5:30 pm CT

The below are are the takeaways from the fourth community meeting of the Midwest Climate Educator Community of Practice.

The prevailing definition of a "Green School" is a school that reduces environmental impact, improves health and wellness of students and staff, and provides effective environmental and sustainability education.
Research shows that in order to reach "whole-school sustainability," green and healthy practices should be integrated holistically throughout the school's physical place, educational programming, and organizational culture - with the school culture being a key piece for achieving long-term success.
While these definitions and approaches can help us to find commonality and serve as a guiding force, there is no one size fits all. A "Green School" can take lots of different forms based upon their unique setting, needs, desires, resources, and community.
Leaders are empowered at all levels - students, faculty, staff, administration - and one champion can catalyze efforts that result in systems-level changes.
The most successful models seem to be very connected to their communities, engaging community partners to collectively bring about positive outcomes that benefit the school, the partnering organizations and community.