We have gathered some excellent school resources online for your evaluation. Take a look at these valuable sites!
Scholastics.com
-- This informative site talks about The 5 Top Ways to "Go Green" in the Classroom. Teachers and students share ideas and projects.
The National Resources Defense Council offers information on the health safety issues of
school bus emissions
, specifically, the diesel exhaust our children may be breathing and its effects.
What Could Your Class Do In 5 Minutes a Day? These Kids Have Some Good Ideas!
Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool and the Indoor Air Quality Kit
The EPA has developed a unique software tool to help school districts evaluate and manage their school facilities for key environmental, safety and health issues. [Note: EPA is using the term "district" to broadly describe any institutional system for managing multiple schools, whether they are public, private, tribal, charter or some variation.]
The
Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool
is designed to be customized and used by district-level staff to conduct completely voluntary self-assessments of their school (and other) facilities and to track and manage information on environmental conditions school by school.
In addition to powerful software that can be used by districts to track any facility issues it chooses, EPA has also included critical elements of all of its regulatory and voluntary programs for schools, as well as web links to more detailed information.
Districts and others can download HealthySEATv2 at no cost from the EPA web site. HealthySEATv2 is meant to be loaded and used on district computers; once it is downloaded from the EPA web site, HealthySEATv2 is yours to customize and use as you see fit. There are no reporting requirements and no obligation to use the checklist EPA has provided.
In addition, HealthySEATv2 will help school districts:
Collect the kind of school - and hazard - specific data necessary to make a compelling case for needed renovation, repair and maintenance dollars.
Demonstrate to the community that your district is committed to the health and safety of children and staff.
The EPA also provides an Indoor Air Quality, Tools for Schools Action Kit . This kit shows schools how to carry out a practical plan to improve indoor air problems at little -or no- cost using straight forward activities and in-house staff.
The Kit provides best practices, industry guidelines, sample policies,and a sample Indoor Air Quality management plan.
The voluntary guidance can save schools time and money so that resources can be directed toward educating children. The IAQ TfS Action Kit is co-sponsored by the National Parent Teacher Association, National Education Association, Association of School Business Officials, American Federation of Teachers, and the American Lung Association.
The IAQ TfS Action Kit has many useful components to help schools and school districts design and implement their IAQ programs. These items include:
a Fact Sheet on How to Implement the Kit District-Wide*,
Road Map*,
Coordinator's Guide,
Reference Guide,
IAQ Backgrounder,
summary of the Awards Program,
IAQ Problem Solving Wheel*,
Managing Asthma in the School Environment*, and
two videos*.
The Kit also includes checklists and backgrounders designed for different school personnel to use to ensure a complete assessment of the school's IAQ.
PDF versions are available for most items, and schools can also download and modify the various checklists as MS Word documents.
Schools can identify problems by using the checklists and conducting building walkthroughs as demonstrated in the IAQ Tools for Schools Walkthrough Video: Four Schools Making A Difference.
