At Tuesday night’s Board of Education Committee, Todd Johnson, co-chair of CCUSD’s Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee, presented the Board with the 2013 Leadership Award that the District earned at the Annual Green California Schools Summit.
The Green California Schools Summit was established to provide a meeting place for stakeholders in the greening of California’s schools – from facility managers, finance officers, teachers and administrators to architects, engineers and curriculum developers.
As one of the nation’s largest annual green school events, the Summit provides a unique opportunity to share innovations in policy, technology and practice.
At the summit, CCUSD was honored for the efforts of its Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee, which worked with teachers to create an educational program called “Green5” – 5 easy things everyone can do to save energy and work toward sustainability. The pilot was focused on the highest energy use schools. At the same time, the school board made the difficult but intelligent decision to utilize some of their limited capital improvement funds to install a solar photovoltaic system that will offset the majority of the energy use on the main campus, and is working with SunPower to create educational opportunities for math, science and trades around this energy project.
This is not just a program to educate students and teachers to save energy and money at school, this extends to the entire community, as the kids win prizes which they tell everyone about, and watch fun performances and games to bring home and share with their families, which spreads the word.
The integration of awareness programs like posters and plays, combined with art projects, combined with the leadership model of generating the electricity with solar, combined with education programs that teach conservation and career skills, results in energy conservation becoming embedded in the culture and community.
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