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Cool Green Schools

  • The Air Isn’t Fair

    The Air Isn’t Fair

    The chants of “I can’t breathe” have faded from our streets, but there are many who still suffer from polluted air in our communities, homes, and schools.

    Cool Green Schools is creating a network of air quality monitoring at schools across different communities in Maryland. We are offering over 200 air quality monitors to schools so their students can study the indoor and outdoor air quality at their schools.

    We don’t stop there. We help students to identify and reduce asthma triggers, how to build low-cost air filters, and how to benchmark the environmental conditions at their schools and homes.

    Why is this important?

    The health of our students doesn’t start or end at our school doors. When our students learn to identify and reduce asthma triggers at school, they can create healthier conditions as their schools and apply these skills to their homes, where they spend even more of their time.

    What can we gain?

    Students will learn to study and improve their environments with professional tools and scientific methods.

    We expect to lower asthma-related absences and improve student performance.

    Our network of monitors will give us a much better understanding of air quality in different neighborhoods and schools.

    To join this project, please contact:

    Shan Gordon Cool Green Schools cell: 410-336-8239 shan@coolgreenschools.org

  • Celebrating Earth Day Gifts

    The chants of “I can’t breathe” have faded from our streets, but there are many who still suffer from polluted air in our communities, homes, and schools.

    Cool Green Schools is creating a network of air quality monitoring at schools across different communities in Maryland. We are offering over 200 air quality monitors to schools so their students can study the indoor and outdoor air quality at their schools.

    We don’t stop there. We help students to identify and reduce asthma triggers, how to build low-cost air filters, and how to benchmark the environmental conditions at their schools and homes.

    Why is this important?

    The health of our students doesn’t start or end at our school doors. When our students learn to identify and reduce asthma triggers at school, they can create healthier conditions as their schools and apply these skills to their homes, where they spend even more of their time.

    What can we gain?

    Students will learn to study and improve their environments with professional tools and scientific methods.

    We expect to lower asthma-related absences and improve student performance.

    Our network of monitors will give us a much better understanding of air quality in different neighborhoods and schools.

    To join this project, please contact:

    Shan Gordon Cool Green Schools cell: 410-336-8239 shan@coolgreenschools.org

  • Community Research: A Catalyst for Social Impact?

    The chants of “I can’t breathe” have faded from our streets, but there are many who still suffer from polluted air in our communities, homes, and schools.

    Cool Green Schools is creating a network of air quality monitoring at schools across different communities in Maryland. We are offering over 200 air quality monitors to schools so their students can study the indoor and outdoor air quality at their schools.

    We don’t stop there. We help students to identify and reduce asthma triggers, how to build low-cost air filters, and how to benchmark the environmental conditions at their schools and homes.

    Why is this important?

    The health of our students doesn’t start or end at our school doors. When our students learn to identify and reduce asthma triggers at school, they can create healthier conditions as their schools and apply these skills to their homes, where they spend even more of their time.

    What can we gain?

    Students will learn to study and improve their environments with professional tools and scientific methods.

    We expect to lower asthma-related absences and improve student performance.

    Our network of monitors will give us a much better understanding of air quality in different neighborhoods and schools.

    To join this project, please contact:

    Shan Gordon Cool Green Schools cell: 410-336-8239 shan@coolgreenschools.org

  • The Air Isn’t Fair

    The Air Isn’t Fair

    After protest chants of “I can’t breath!,” have faded from our streets, we can look at another important social and equity issue: Poor Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) affecting millions of students in our schools. For decades, schools–especially schools in low income districts–have been failing to provide students with the level of air quality which we…

  • Celebrating Earth Day Gifts

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  • Community Research: A Catalyst for Social Impact?

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Experiment You

How Students Can Improve Their Health And Learning.

 

Our schools constantly test our students to measure their achievement.

But if we want to improve student achievement, it’s time for students to test their schools.

 

  • Are classrooms too hot or too cold?
  • Are pest and mold problems causing asthma attacks and absences?
  • Are students getting enough exercise and water?
  • Do students need glasses to read the board and their textbooks?
  • Does poor bus service cause students to be late or miss school?
  • Are lunches nutritious and palatable?
  • Why are so many students still failing to succeed in math and science?

 

Challenging students to investigate and improve their health and learning engages them in a meaningful, real world scientific inquiry.

It is a perfect fit for STEM, Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core curriculum. 

Students get hands on training for careers in health, building, teaching, and social science.

 

Students see how they can use science and innovation to improve their lives.

 

Experiment You  engages students as scientists and problem solvers in a very real and important experiment: how can we use our learning and innovation to improve our lives?

As a STEM based inquiry, students use surveys, observations, and tools to benchmark their health and the health and learning conditions at their school.

 

Surveys
Students learn to create and use surveys to gain information on student health and school conditions.

How many students have missed school because of asthma related issues? What classrooms are too hot or cold? Where have students seen mold, mice or cockroaches? Are students getting enough healthy foods, sleep and exercise?

 

Tools for Schools
Using the Tools for Schools walk through assessment from EPA, students discover and report asthma triggers at their schools.

 

Operations Report Card
Using the Operations report card protocol from the Collaboration for High Performing Schools (CHPS) students collect and analyze data on the temperature, humidity, air quality, lighting and acoustics.

 

Energy Star Portfolio Manager
Using the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, students can benchmark the carbon footprint of their school and compare the energy use of their school to similar schools in their area. Students identify ways to eliminate energy waste at their school.Solving for …us.
After collecting this data, students are challenged to create improvements in each of these areas. Finding ways to improve their health and the conditions at their school engages students in real world problem solving at ground level.

 

  • Can cross ventilation reduce excessive heat in classrooms or does the air conditioning need to be fixed?
  • Why are the outdoor security lights on in the daytime?
  • How can students help reduce the amount of pests in the school without chemicals?
  • How can we reduce asthma related absences at our school?
  • Is there an easy way to screen students for vision problems?

 

Engaging students in solving problems which they face,

challenges them to take control and responsibility of their own learning and futures.

 

Every school is a laboratory and every student is an experiment.

The question is whether our students will remain lab rats running a maze, or whether they become scientists and innovators, using their learning to improve their conditions and outcomes. This is rich learning that grows the confidence and competence of our students. It is time.
-Shan

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