These girls love school and aren’t afraid to talk about it.

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The post Girls Rapping About School is Our Favorite Genre appeared first on EcoSalon.

A round-up of what we’re reading right now. 

Because you should never be without a to-go cup: now you can make your own from a mason jar. Just make sure you use a reusable straw. [Via Fine and Feathered]

It’s back-to-school season, but what does education look like in the rest of the world? This portrait slideshow takes us into classrooms from around the globe. [Via Brain Pickings]

Summer isn’t over until the fall equinox, and this healthy Mint Mojito Smoothie might just be the afternoon reminder that you need to embrace the late season. [Via Well+Good NYC]

Movies can be educational, which is why someone came up with this list of Lifetime movies for Republicans who don’t understand rape. [Via The Cut]

Minimalism is on trend right now. Even for Kuwaitis. [Via Dezeen]

Your drinking habits depend on the shape of your glass. [Via The Atlantic]

Our new dream house? A converted barn in France. [Via The Style Files]

On average, Americans eat 200 pounds of meat a year. That’s not just bad for our health, it’s also fueling the water crisis. [Via Mother Jones]

Trying to figure out how to live better in small spaces? You need the Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Feng Shui. [Via Greatist]

Image: Fine and Feathered

The post Link Love: How to Turn a Mason Jar Into a To-Go Cup, Kuwaiti Minimalism and Movies for Republicans Who Don’t Understand Rape appeared first on EcoSalon.

Study up.

Last week, the education world was abuzz when changes to the federal student loan program went into effect, many with lasting implications for students and graduates grappling with college debt. Learn more about the issue with this series of education-related infographics, which tackle topics from debt, to digital media, to the disastrous effects of playing hooky. Don’t worry, you won’t be graded.

The Final Countdown: The federal student loan debate, demystified with an infographic by NerdWallet.

Education’s Effect on Income: Surprise, surprise – the more education you have, the more you’ll likely earn.

The Gamification of Education: A look at how games can make education more engaging… and hopefully lift graduation rates.

Components of a 21st Century Classroom: How technology has and will change the way that schools function.

The United States of Student Debt: A breakdown of who’s in debt and by how much, from Mint.com.

The State of Digital Education: The transformative power of technology and the Internet.

Applied Finance 101: A crash course in entering real life.

The True Cost of Skipping Class: Well now we just feel guilty.

Educating the Workforce of the Future: Looking forward, more jobs will require some form of higher education, states this infographic from GOOD, Hyperakt, and the University of Phoenix.

U.S. Education Vs. The World: The U.S. spends more than any other country on education. Do the results stack up?

ALSO CHECK OUT:

10 Political Infographics on Election 2012

10 Infographics on Energy

10 Infographics on Farming and Agriculture

Check out more infographics here.

Image: naosuke ii

The post 10 Infographics on Education in America appeared first on EcoSalon.

There are (or were) few things as wonderfully tech-free as the little red schoolhouse. A single room, a few wooden desks, a corresponding number of quaint textbooks (paper) and, well, okay, a chalkboard. I guess that counts for technology. But, still, write on it 100 times: “Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Keep it simple”¦” And then add: “With nothing toxic. With nothing toxic. With nothing toxic”¦”

Unfortunately, the classroom has not been immune from the hazards of “progress,” both in terms of its impact on our environment as well as on the health of the people (namely, kids) who benefit from it. But from asbestos to lead paint, where our children learn has rightly been on the forefront of our society’s efforts to clean itself up. And this summer, the Bolsa Knolls Middle School in Salinas, California, turned such efforts into a proactive initiative by installing new, environmentally friendly schoolrooms for its sixth and seventh graders.

The modular classrooms are dubbed Gen7, by their West Coast manufacturer, American Modular Systems (AMS). The prefab “green learning spaces” were constructed off-site and delivered to Bolsa Knolls over the summer, just in time for the start of the school year.

To create the classrooms, AMS started with green and efficient electrical and mechanical systems and integrated them into its established “building envelope.” The finished product contains mostly recycled and recyclable materials, and low and zero VOC (volatile organic compound) interiors. Insulation in the walls and roof make for a quiet learning space and minimize heat and cooling loss. (Oh, and how’s this for school cool: One of the recycled materials used in the structures’ insulation is denim fabric scraps.) Meanwhile smart lighting is provided by “natural daylight harvesting.”

Test results: the whole shebang exceeds California’s Title 24 Energy Code by more than 30 percent.

The off-site construction method, says AMS, means reduced energy demands, without chemicals or toxins or waste requiring landfills required at the project location, which is good for the local community. And “because our Gen7 schoolrooms are modular, they can be installed and ready for students in as few as 90 days,” said Tony Sarich, AMS’ vice president of operation. Read: over the summer. (Summer. As in “where did that go?”)

Here’s some more info for our loyal “Spec-Heads”: Smart Thermal Displacement Ventilation (TDV) system reduces electricity use and costs by 35 percent; grid-neutral design structure; programmable lighting that’s natural daylight harvesting; Low-E, solar band 60 dual-glazed operable windows and programmable Energy Star-rated tubular skylights that lower electricity usage. Oh, and the roof is designed to allow the installation of photo-voltaic power panels. Okay, folks, now settle down.

Behind the scenes, AMS is also promoting itself as an excellent green corporate citizen “dedicated to earth-friendly manufacturing practices.” Its facilities “employ a range of green practices, including daylight harvesting at its 280,000-square-foot enclosed manufacturing space, efficient office lighting and heating/cooling, effective water-saving devices and have installed a rooftop solar-capturing system to offset energy usage.” Want more? Its site even mentions that plant employees carpool to work and jobsites in “modern, CA emission-compliant vehicles.”

The results of all this could be dramatic: According to AMS, kids attending green schools are posting “20 percent higher test scores, fewer absences due to respiratory illness, lower faculty healthcare costs and higher teacher retention.” Also big on the agenda is money savings, which can mean strapped school systems end up with more green. According to The Californian, Trevor Miller, the district’s facilities consultant, each 1,000-square-foot classroom costs the district about $180,000 or half the cost of a conventional classroom. Write that a hundred times: “Half the cost. Half the cost. Half…”

Also see: Crisp Green

The post A Little Class: Clean, Well-Lit Modular Green Spaces for Kids appeared first on EcoSalon.

According to Waste-Free Lunches, “a school-age child using a disposable lunch generates 67 pounds of waste per school year. That equates to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for just one average-size elementary school.” The good news is, parents can lessen their child’s daily impact on the earth by packing their lunch in a reusable lunch system comprised of non-toxic components containing no disposable materials. Here are three reusable, waste-free lunch kits that will make your kid’s meals away from home healthy – for their bodies and the planet.

1. Citizenpip

Seen at the top of this post, the “Soup to Nuts” reusable lunch kit from Citizenpip truly lives up to its name. Included in the kit are a reusable insulated lunch bag, available in a variety of kid-friendly designs, a stainless steel water bottle (which may double as an ice pack), a stainless steel insulated food jar, four BPA-free airtight food containers, a stainless steel fork and spoon set and five (one for each day of the school week) 100 percent cotton napkins. I really like this lunch kit for older children in elementary school, because it can hold a good amount of food, and it keeps food fresh, and saves it from getting squished! The insulated food jar also means you can pack healthy soups during the winter months.

Citizenpip also offers each piece in their collection a la carte. You can buy every component separately to create a personalized lunch system for your child.

Citizenpip Soup to Nuts Kit $69.00

2. Laptop Lunches

Laptop Lunches bento-box sets are my top pick for preschoolers and younger children. They are dainty in size and therefore easy for little hands to tote to and fro, but they pack quite a lot of perfectly sized portions when it comes to food organization. The system is free of phthalates, BPA and lead, and they are made in the USA.

Each lunch set has containers and two stainless steel utensils. The design of the lunch tray keeps foods separated, while delightfully presenting each course, making the meal appeal to the senses of small children who may be picky eaters. The Laptop Lunch site also features a photo gallery and menu library to offer suggestions of what to pack for lunches. Just looking at the meals makes me hungry!

Laptop Lunch Set $24.00

3. Kids Konserve

High schoolers may be more comfortable bringing a sack-style lunch to the cafeteria table, as opposed to a lunch box. Kids Konserve‘s signature waste-free lunch kit will have their peers green with envy. Also BPA-, lead-, and phthalate-free, this lunch kit includes a recycled cotton sack, a stainless steel beverage bottle, a cloth napkin, two stainless steel food containers and a food cozy.

Kids Konserve also offers a variety of food storage and packing options so kids can pick and choose the best components to meet their mealtime needs.

Kids Konserve Waste-free Lunch Kits are on sale for $30.00.

The post 3 Reusable, No-Waste Lunch Systems for Back-to-School appeared first on EcoSalon.

Junk food has always gotten a bad rap as one of the core culprits of America’s obesity epidemic – and rightly so. Chef Jamie Oliver recently shined a spotlight on the issue of fattening and unhealthy foods being served in school lunches with his show, Food Revolution. And now, a high school principal in Appleton, Wisconsin is blaming her students’ poor diets for crime and vandalism on campus, and claims that modifying the school’s nutrition standards resulted in changes in student behavior, concentration and energy levels, while ushering in a crime-free era. Is this simply a coincidence and more than we can swallow, or is the proof in the banished pudding?

Principal LuAnn Coenen asserts that once junk food was eradicated from the school menu, i.e: fruits and vegetables usurped hamburgers and fries, candy was banned from school grounds, soda pop laden vending machines were replaced with water coolers, (for an entire list of the board’s nutrition standards, click here), “students were calm, socially engaged, and focused on their schoolwork,” problems were minimal and police no longer needed to patrol the hallways.

Could a change of menu contribute to such a weighty outcome? It’s my belief that food is the body’s fuel, and whatever we put in it is how we will in turn operate, be it at a high level of performance, or sputtering down the highway of life, and there’s no doubt we’ve all witnessed in our children and in ourselves what a sugar or caffeine high, followed by an inevitable crash and burn can do to our body and our psyche.

It’s a fundamental fact that diet and nutrition supply the body with energy, and affect the brain’s processes, so what can it possibly hurt to enlist schools to change their menus with the hope of seeing their students attain better grades and a more even-keeled and overall peaceful environment? Processed junk food is so much less expensive and easily attainable, which is why we need case studies like this to pave the way for higher nutrition standards to infiltrate schools, in place of metal detectors and anti-bullying seminars.

Of course, there are many other contributing factors to school violence and disorderly conduct, but why not give ‘peas’ a chance to make a difference? The WELL Said blog takes another look into this simple menu change and ensuing positive effects. Blogger Christina asks: “Is there so little interest in dietary solutions because there is no money to be made by the pharmaceutical companies that tout their behavior-modifying drugs to our children? Could it be that once again special interests are blocking the path to the truth? Could it be that we should be looking to a high school in Wisconsin for the recipe (pun intended) to reduce violent behavior and create emotional well-being?”

All food for thought.

SOURCE
Image: ericnvntr

The post Change the Lunch Menu, Reduce Crime appeared first on EcoSalon.

When I was in elementary school I gave zero thought to what auto emissions were doing to the environment. Not once did I look up at the black spew happily chortling up from my school bus and wonder where it went and what it meant. Maybe it was because I grew up in Detroit where such thoughts fell somewhere between anathema and simply way off radar. Today, of course, kids are different. (Well, some kids.) It’s second nature for them to wonder about such things. And it should be second nature to us to send them the right messages.

So, what about those school buses?

Some good news on this front comes in the form of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus USA program, which is designed to “reduce children’s exposure to diesel exhaust and the amount of air pollution created by diesel school buses.” Clean School Bus USA is one of a number of federal and state programs that are providing grants for school-bus retrofitting and replacement to offer the approximately 24-million American children who take school buses daily a better ride. (That’s a lot of kids breathing in bus stuff for an average hour and half every day.)

The effort is beginning to pay off, most recently in Wisconsin and Ohio where a large Illinois-based school bus manufacturer has been commissioned to build 16 hybrid gasoline-electric buses for use in local school systems. The company, IC Bus, is a subsidiary of Navistar, which makes more than 60 percent of North America’s school buses and is also the recipient of recent $39 million dollar federal grant to manufacture all-electric vehicles. IC Bus is working with Enova (electric drive train) and Valance (electric propulsion) technology to deliver its CE Series hybrid bus, which is offered as a plug-in or a gas-electric without the plug-in option.

IC Bus says the series boasts 65 percent better fuel economy and a reduction of 39 percent emissions compared to the average diesel school bus. This is a big deal, kids. Those school buses cover a lot of ground. Can you say more than four billion miles a year?

Image: Andrei!

The post Busing 2010: School of Hybrid appeared first on EcoSalon.

Only three weeks left of summer and the ads to stock up and save on school gear are invading our space. Grrrr!

Anxious kids sense the clock is ticking as they try to prolong the inevitable. Meantime, I refuse to listen, look or buy when it comes to the ads for “must have” clothes and supplies for fall.

I can’t stand it when the Christmas ads and music start playing after Halloween. I cringe when the Easter cards appear once Valentine’s Day cards are cleaned off the shelves, or when Fourth of July streamers and hats patriotically appear in windows moments after Mother’s Day.

And I can’t stand this retail intrusion, either.

Here are five reasons why we all should just say “No!” to the pressure to prep for September in August.

1. The ads are specifically designed by marketing executives as a strategy to get us to buy items we don’t need.

Mainly, this addresses back-to-school clothes and supplies. What’s the hurry? After all, in most states, the weather stays pretty much the same in September as in August, and I bet your kids can get by with the same jeans, Converse shoes, socks, tees, sweat shirts and possibly the uniforms they already own.

In addition, if you’re like me, you replaced the backpack in the spring and it is still good to go in the fall after a bit of wear-and-tear during the summer months. Teachers provide supply lists for each class, and many of those items you already own, such as rulers, binders, pencil bags, markers, boxes of tissues, and other supplies. We can get kids excited about entering a new grade without associating the leap with buying new junk.

Better to fill in with what they don’t have and get them excited with one personalized reusable lunch box with homemade organic cookies and a loving note inside.

Dear Lo, have a wonderful first day and eat the vegetables I packed! Insist on moving if you are seated next to Oren again this year. We’re all tired of him eating your pencils. Love, Mommy.

2. School Ads in August rob us of what little freedom we have left.

My kids hear the radio ads to start stocking up on supplies and sigh, “Summer is over already.” I tell them that they have three weeks left and to ignore the stupid radio ads. Stores like Target, Walmart and Sears (the back-to-school headquarters) just want to sell as much as they can to make money ’cause times are hard. But kids still have time to sleep in and play in the sand and do nothing to their heart’s content.

3. The retail goal of accelerating fall works against living in the present.

Isn’t one of the goals of a healthy mind to live in the present and reap the benefits of the Power of Now, as described in Eckhart Tolle’s bestselling guide? Being hit with television, online and radio spots about buying for school encourages us to direct our thoughts towards the months ahead and to rush out now and get ready or else.

Or else, what? Will our child be an embarrassment showing up on the first day in a dress they’ve already worn or uncool dirty shoes? Will they fail miserably without the proper Jonas Brothers backpack or Miley binder and be relegated to a dark corner of the cafeteria to eat alone?

There is nothing to get ready for except for bed after months of unstructured living. Have a nice end of summer dinner, put them down at a decent hour, make sure the alarm clock works, fix a good breakfast and get them out the door and to school on time. There, you a have done your job without blowing $200 on non-essentials.

4. Back-to-School ads are anti-green.

You don’t hear them talking about loading up on eco-friendly ensembles and recycled backpacks, do you?

No, they want you to buy cheap, made-in-China plastics that last a few months and pile up in landfills. It’s sort of like the cell phone manufacturer strategy. They make this stuff as cheap as possible to trick you into thinking you are getting big savings, but the reality is you are buying something made as cheaply as possible in most cases – junk that needs to be replaced as soon as it breaks or breaks down. It’s is always better to buy quality for your kids that will endure rather than getting duped by the ad giants to purchase short-lived, toxic Chinese bulk. Less is more. Quality over quantity.

Plus, no one wants to buy new wardrobes and tons of supplies during a recession. Do clothing swaps with friends, handing down clothes that don’t fit. Just buy what they need and hold firm. Believe me, there is plenty of time to shop for sale items throughout the year. These days, things are always on sale. They need to be!

5. The popular tune School’s Out for Summer means all summer.

Ask Alice Cooper if you don’t believe me. He will tell you the lyrics never said, School’s out for summer until early August because you have to buy stuff. Take back your power and be an ad buster. You have the control to savor what precious time is left of summer. Don’t succumb to the pressure to buy now!

Main Image:  Target

Image 1: Sketchers

Image 2: E.L. Bradley

Image 3: Kohl’s

Image 4: Sodahead

The post Why Parents Should Reject Back-to-School Ads in August appeared first on EcoSalon.

Schools throughout the world are making efforts to be greener in both their environment and their actions.

But none can beat Green School in Indonesia, which opened in September 2008. Green inside and out, it is considered the world’s first truly green school. Located in Sibang Kaja in central Bali, this school is made from Balinese bamboo and features local alang-alang grass roofs and traditional mud floors. Even the furniture and furnishings are made from the local bamboo.

Green School’s energy and electricity are generated by solar panels, biogas (from cow manure) and hydropower. Living fences border the 8-hectare campus that is also a productive organic farm. The roads around the campus are made of volcanic rock and the footpaths combine gravel with a pumice rock border that allows grass to grow within.

It’s a school with no walls. Children are able to do their reading and writing under natural light and fresh air breezes. They even get to help tend the gardens under the guidance of a permaculturalist.

Serving more that 100 children from kindergarten through eighth grade, the Green School’s curriculum is aimed at encouraging not only a child’s love of learning and spirit of inquiry but a better understanding of the environment. Traditional subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught alongside subjects such as rice field ecology. Students also learn how to make abstract ideas become real at the school’s Learning Village where they participate in various entrepreneurial and agricultural projects ranging from the manufacture of chocolate to helping manage organic fields and bamboo plantations.

The brainchild of John and Cynthia Hardy, expat Canadian jewellers who have lived in Bali for the past thirty years, the goal of Green School is to prepare students to thrive in the challenging, complex 21st-century world by “…connecting learning with creativity; environmental responsibility with scientific knowledge; respect for the self with respect for a wide variety of cultures.”

Sounds like something all schools should be aiming toward.

The post A Truly Green School appeared first on EcoSalon.