• Education grows with learning garden.
• Students learn life lessons through gardening.
• Kids learn about the importance of nutrition and gardening sustainability.
• Constructing a courtyard creates various sensory activities for the kids.

So, are you inspired? Is your PTO or PTA involved in a garden project? We’d love to hear about it.

If you are looking for other ways to make your school more green, check out these articles and tools:

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/825-how-ptos-are-going-green

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/689-fun-and-eco-games

http://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/826-greening-our-parent-group

http://www.ptotoday.com/sfn/SFN_gogreen_leader.php

Happy weekend and happy gardening!

Walk to School Day: Have volunteer chaperones meet groups of children at predetermined spots, then walk together to school. It’s healthy, it’s fun, and it cuts down on traffic.

No-Waste Lunch Week: See if you can keep the trash barrels empty by recycling, composting, and reusing.

Go Green Night: Hold a family night that teaches kids about energy conservation, recycling, and more. Our free Go Green Night kit has lots of fun and informative activities.

Here are a few other links from ptotoday.com with green ideas:

• One group’s innovative green programs
• Making your PTO green
• More on making your school green

Best wishes and happy Earth Day!

Go Outside
Hold a cleanup day. Give teams of students and parents assignments, such as planting flowers or picking up trash. Send a picture of the cleanup crew to the local newspaper.

Challenge Kids
If your school’s classrooms don’t already have paper recycling bins, purchase containers for this purpose. Ask teachers and students to collect recycled paper for a week, then weigh the containers to see which class saved the most paper from the landfill. Provide an eco-friendly prize.

Raise Some Green
Make an extra push in April for your profit-earning recycling programs. Gather all the aluminum cans, ink cartridges, and used cell phones that you can. Be sure to let families know how many items were recycled and how much money the school earned.

Eco-Fashion Show

Students modeled clothing they created from recycled materials at an environmental assembly organized by the PTA at Samuel Staples Elementary in Easton, Conn., for Earth Day 2010. The PTA’s Green Task Force planned the event, which included a student play about taking care of the earth.

Beach Cleanup

Blue Point (N.Y.) Elementary students spent a day at the shore with their families in September, but they were too busy picking up trash to lie on the sand. The PTA-sponsored cleanup, which took place at a local beach, was tied to the International Coastal Cleanup initiative. The group picked up 170 pounds of trash, including 1,373 cigarette butts and 215 bottles and cans.

• This PTA showed their school and irish spirit by hosting a breakfast with a Leprechaun. Is the boy in the photo the most adorable Leprechaun you’ve ever seen, or what? Actually he’s the only one I’ve seen, but he’s still pretty cute!
• Kudos this parent group for saying thanks to their teachers with a bit of an irish flair.  What a fun day to do a teacher appreciation event!
• Love that this school celebrated  St. Patty’s Day by throwing a Go Green Day for their whole school.  If your school would like to host a Go Green Night, check out this free kit.
• In keeping with a true irish tradition, this PTA invited parents to join them for a pint of Guinness!

Cheers! Have a great weekend.

• Batter up! This PTO has about 2,500 people attend their pancake breakfast. Wow. That’s a whole lot of pancakes. More importantly, that’s whole lot of school and community spirit!
• Now here’s an idea: offer a $5,000 jack pot to get parents to come to your fundraiser. The only catch is that event tickets are $100 per couple. A night out with other parents and a chance at $5k — sounds worth it to me.
• Speaking of prizes, this school is enticing parents of  freshman to come to their information night with a free chili dinner and a chance to win one of four Kindles. Nice.
• We always say that family nights are a terrific way to build community at your school. This PTO has the right idea… they are running a “Minute to Win It”  family challenge, followed by a family movie night.  Sounds like a fun night!
• Like the twist that this PTO put on their school auction:  the auction items are re-gifts.  Re-use, recycle and raise money for the school. Genius.
• Kudos to this school for hosting an environmental fair before green was hip! Really like that more 120 kids are involved in their 15th annual school environmental fair.

Don’t forget to let us know if your PTO or PTA event gets press! We’d love to include your story in our round-ups. Email me at lgundlach@ptotoday.com.

• Not only is a jog-a-thon a great fundraiser but it’s also a terrific way to encourage families to get moving and make healthy choices.
• Family Fun days are a excellent way to build community while showing parents how to make learning more fun.
• Never, ever give up. This parent group’s turn around story offers hope for groups with low involvement.
• Sometimes some of the most basic things require a parent group’s attention… in this case, a PTO rallied support for a walk-to-school program.
• Parent groups have an opportunity to influence their community in their green living habits. Kudos to this PTO for challenging families to go “garbage free.”
• Think beyond fundraising- think pink! This PTA organized a pink day to highlight breast cancer awareness.
• Always love coming across articles about events that were inspired by our PTO Today Magazine… this giant hay maze sounds like a fun, fall event!

Hope you found something to inspire you. Have a fabulous weekend. Don’t forget to send me a link to any articles about your parent group!

All-Ages Project
The Gullett Elementary PTA in Austin, Texas, renovated the school courtyard to create a butterfly garden and a picnic area. Students and parents joined in on community workdays to move old fencing and prep the area for construction of a stone walkway in the shape of a snake. Kids too young for that work made birdhouses out of recycled milk cartons. After construction, students painted stripes on the snaking path.

Cutting Costs
To save money on a landscaping project, the Andrew Cooke Magnet School PTO called on home gardeners to bring cuttings from perennials to a workday at the Waukegan, Ill., school. More than 200 students and parents turned out to plant gardens and paint hopscotch squares, planters, and picnic benches.

Online Appeal
To find help for a summer workday, the Chelsea (Ala.) Middle School PTO went to where students are: Facebook. The PTO put up a day-before notice with a particular request for high schoolers needing community service hours.

Here’s what I learned about LEED certification:

“The LEED rating system considers a new building’s air quality, water and energy efficiency, environmentally friendly materials and construction waste. Even the type of landscaping around the building and how it is irrigated is considered.”

What I think are some of  Learning Gate School’s neatest green features are solar-powered classrooms and toilets flushed with rainwater. If you are interested in learning more about the process that the Learning Gate Community School went through to achieve Platinum certification, I highly recommend watching this fun video: Journey into Platinum.

Charles Girard, contractor for the project and President & CEO of Green Modular Solutions gave me a rundown of what he thinks are the most notable aspects of the Learning Gate Community School’s green buildings (with my notes in italics):

• an innovative HVAC system that “washes” the air to make sure that it is clean (Don’t you just wonder sometimes when the same virus goes around the school over and over, if it has to do with the HVAC system?!)
• daylight lighting that mimics natural lighting (Who doesn’t hate fluorescent lights?)
• a building that is synergetic – in other words, all parts of the building work together efficiently thus taxing our environment as minimally as possible. (A building setting a positive example for students – now that’s cool.)

It makes sense that these and more features all add up to a learning environment that has healthy students and staff, and an overall better learning environment. Not to mention that the whole approach is setting an amazing example for the students. I wish my kids went to this school!

So kudos to Learning Gate for taking on this immense project in order to benefit their kids, and to Lowe’s for helping to fund it.
Since 2006, Lowe’s has donated more than $22 million to 4,900 K-12 public schools, benefitting more than 2.5 million school children. Now that’s impressive. The current Lowe’s Toolbox for Education grant cycle is open until October 15. What projects is your school thinking about?

Pop on over to our new Go Green Group and join the conversation. Also, we’d love to see photos of your green initiatives or your Go Green Night event! The first 5 community members to upload an album of at least 5 photographs* of your green school event or program will get a $25 Lowe’s gift card!

Thanks in advance for taking the time to share your experience in our new group. This is such an important topic for parent groups. Not only are you helping the environment but you are sending an important message to our children — and setting a great example.

*Please chose photos that show other leaders how you set up your green event or programs. General photos that don’t relate to green initiatives do not qualify. One gift card per school.