Gun-free, idle-free schools
Schools already are designated gun-free, drug-free zones, and West Virginia is moving toward adding “idle-free” to the list.
The state’s Department of Environment Protection is entering the second year of a program that provides school boards, Head Start programs and private schools with signs declaring them idle-free, according to this Charleston Daily Mail story.
The state already prohibits school buses from idling unless it’s below 40 degrees outside. Officials hope the signs will encourage parents to do the same.
Are financial or environmental concerns enough to convince you to cut your engine while you wait for your children to get out of school? Share your comments here.
Wendy Kleinman
Education Reporter
Lights out
An economic squeeze and environmental awareness are generating incentives for schools to cut back their energy usage.
For instance, a Texas-based program called Watt Watchers encourages selected students to monitor classrooms, rewarding those that turn off lights at times like lunch and recess and leaving reminder notes on the doors of energy offenders.
In Hawaii, the education department recently notified more than 100 schools that they can receive rebates of between $2 and $45,000 for saving electricity. Another hundred-plus schools, though, have to reimburse the state thousands of dollars for excessive energy usage.
In Oklahoma, two education centers are listed on BuildGreenSchools.org as being registered with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design): Oklahoma City Educare and Fort Sill’s Child Development Center.
What kind of incentives do you think would get Oklahoma schools to cut back their energy consumption?
I’d like to hear your ideas – especially from students – so share them here on NewsOK’s Education Station.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
Putting down roots
One week. It’s how long Oklahoma spends observing Arbor Day, and it’s how long people have left to get a free tree for fourth-graders to plant for the occasion.
I’ve never been very good at keeping indoor greenery alive. It seems I don’t put them in a place to get enough sunlight or I forget to water them one day. But outdoor trees get all the light there is from sunup to sundown and get water from either the rain or, in a dry spell, the sprinkler put out for the lawn.
Now, for the cost of shipping alone — $1.59 — Fourth Grade Foresters USA will send schools an individually packaged evergreen tree seedling to give a student to take home and plant.
Any person, organization or company can sponsor a tree, which will be sent with the sponsor’s name to a nearby school.
The trees are unsold seedlings that would otherwise be destroyed, and they are packaged by adults with disabilities through the Free Trees and Plants project (www.freetreesandplants.com).
Oklahoma Arbor Week is the last full week in March, and the deadline to sponsor a tree for a youngster is Feb. 23. To do so, contact Sarah Henne at 866-390-1428 or sehenne@neb.rr.com.
And if you have any tips on how I can improve my own green thumb, send them to me at wkleinman@oklahoman.com.
Wendy K. Kleinman
Education Reporter
E is for Ecology
Some Stillwater third-graders are growing green thumbs while they boost brain power.
Two volunteers from the Oklahoma State University Botanical Garden are leading the Literature in the Garden program at Skyline Elementary School. The curriculum aims to engage students through garden and ecology-themed children’s books.
Volunteer Merry Alexander said she wants to instill in students a love of reading and plants. She said children don’t always understand how important plants are to their lives and the earth.
Student activities have included touring the OSU garden, creating seed balls to grow and eating “dirt,” a mixture of candy and crackers that simulated the earth’s layers.
I’m not much of a green thumb myself, so those activities sound like a fun way to encourage interest in plant life. Too bad my flower beds aren’t full of M&Ms.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
Pomp and Pageantry
UCO President Roger Webb generated chuckles today when talking to faculty about the university’s many accomplishments.
Chief among them was the crowning of UCO student Lauren Nelson as Miss America 2007. The reigning Miss Black Oklahoma and Mrs. Oklahoma also were UCO students.
The Edmond campus attracts brains AND beauty, Webb said.
“If you’ve got a son that’s a senior in high school, this is the place to be,” Webb quipped at the annual fall meeting of staff and faculty.
Executive Vice President Steve Kreidler had beauty on the brain as well. Before touting the university’s environmental efforts, he gave the signature Miss America wave to the audience — hand cupped then rotated slowly.
Thank goodness it wasn’t the ballgown competition.
Susan Simpson, Education Writer
