The Center for Green Schools School Health Research Library research focuses on the impact of the school built environment on student and staff health and performance, including a variety of indoor environmental health topics ranging from indoor air pollutants to lighting and acoustics. This unique database of the latest school-based research allows users to quickly find and access studies most applicable to their needs through filters for measured exposures, student and staff outcomes, free public access, and study location. An accompanying series of research highlights are posted with the library to help translate this research into action in schools and currently feature particulate matter, VOCs, and PFAS. Each research highlight is designed to support school staff and leaders in understanding key findings from research conducted in the U.S and around the world, as well as important background information and actionable mitigation strategies.

This walkthrough checklist can be used by environmental compliance and sustainability teams to document building conditions.

This inspection list is helpful for an environmental compliance and sustainability team assessment of building conditions.

The OCPS IEQ Management Plan is a blueprint for success in dealing with the IEQ issues the district currently faces and those that may occur in the future. The three goals that must be achieved to ensure success are: 1. To promptly and effectively deal with IEQ problems 2. To effectively eliminate or minimize conditions that can cause IEQ problems 3. To prevent problems from occurring in the future.

DMPS has implemented an IAQ Management Plan (since 2012) that will monitor and improve the quality of air in school buildings. The objectives of the IAQ Plan are outlined in the document.

An effective IAQ program can help schools and districts address IAQ issues quickly and efficiently and create a healthier learning environment for staff and students. The program should be tailored to the specific needs of your school.

Subject To Climate's core platform (www.subjecttoclimate.org) is a free, easy-to-use hub that connects educators of all grade levels and subject areas to the resources they need to teach about climate change.

The New York State Electric School Bus (ESB) Guidebook supports the New York State mandate to transition all school buses in the State to zero-emission operation by 2035. It contains information, strategies, and resources to assist school districts, contractors, and other school bus stakeholders with this transition. The Guidebook is made up of content-specific ‘guides’ that cover a variety of school bus electrification topics including environmental benefits of electrification, electric school bus and charger purchasing, available incentives, site planning, workforce training, and operations and maintenance of electric school buses.

Free Learning through Play materials designed to engage children in sustainability and the environment. Designed for use in classrooms, with lesson plans, presentations, and printables.

A toolkit to help families, teachers and school officials get the facts on lead and take action to ensure safe drinking water at school.

If you serve students who are in 6-12th grades, this program is for you!

The Explore.Act.Tell. lessons and project work well in any class/subject area, after school club, homeschool, or community youth group. Lessons will teach young people, through a series of activities, about the issues surrounding hunger and food insecurity and develop skills they will use to create and implement a community service project.

The toolkit supports school board members to understand their role in driving meaningful climate solutions. School board members can collaborate with district, youth, and community leaders to pass resolutions and develop climate action plans for their districts.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers unlimited, non-competitive funding that is available to all schools that move towards adopting clean energy technologies. These improvements can bring long-lasting benefits to your district, including improved student health and safety, fewer learning disruptions, and operational cost savings that can be applied to other district priorities.

The Smithsonian Science Education Center is looking for high school students, ages 14-19, to serve on a global Youth Ambassador Team dedicated to working towards a more sustainable future.

The Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) is working with educators and young people to build knowledge and skills around global and local biodiversity issues. This virtual professional development academy will support educators by offering activities around biodiversity concepts, guidance for student-driven investigations on biodiversity in their community, and opportunities to interact with biodiversity experts, all in relation to how biodiversity can help us achieve the UN SDGs. An interactive Moodle course will also be provided to provide educators extra support, resources, and materials for review.

The Smithsonian Science for Global Goals Project provides youth around the world, ages 8-17, with the knowledge and skills to understand the world’s most pressing issues and to become agents for change in their own communities.  Through a series of freely available community research guides, young people use their communities as their laboratory to investigate the science that underlies the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  

In spring 2023, the Smithsonian Science Education Center contracted with Gallup to conduct a study of U.S. K-12 teachers and school administrators, as well as teachers of students in comparable grade levels in four peer countries: Brazil, Canada, France and India. The goal was to gauge attitudes toward, and demand for, education and resources related to sustainable development. In the United States, educational resources exist within school and district curricula, which must adhere to state standards. Internationally, however, different countries and provinces often have a National Curriculum, typically directed by their Ministries of Education. This study was an outgrowth of the Smithsonian Science Education Center’s Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, which aims to improve STEM Education for Sustainable Development for youth around the world. Download the report to read the findings.

This report, published by the Center for Green Schools in partnership with the Campaign for Environmental Literacy, examines how state legislation, as one piece of a complex puzzle, can help prepare graduates for a future impacted by the climate crisis. The report provides:

• Detailed talking points with citations for making the case
• Essential elements of climate change education legislation
• Model state bill framework
• Profile examples of legislation that supports climate change education in the formal K-12 education system

The Schoolyard Forest System℠ Resource Library is a set of practical tools for schools and districts working to increase tree canopy on public school grounds to shade and protect pre-K-12 students from extreme heat and rising temperatures due to climate change.

The National Outdoor Learning Library is a free online resource library, developed by Green Schoolyards America and partners, designed to help schools and school districts across the United States green their school grounds and move their classes and programs outside.

Educators can work to advance climate solutions — solutions students can see in their schools. The Educator Advocacy Toolkit, developed in partnership between This Is Planet Ed, The National Education Association, and The American Federation of Teachers, provides educators with the strategies and resources to advance climate action locally in their school districts, including talking points to help build consensus and specific programs to leverage for funding.

“HVAC Choices for Student Health and Learning,” shares big ideas relating to school HVAC technology, offers a framework for evaluating costs and obtaining funding, and provides an overview of the benefits that come with all-electric HVAC systems. Three takeaways from the report: HVAC systems are a cornerstone of healthy and comfortable schools that support student well-being and academic performance. Schools, students & communities benefit from modern HVAC systems that are all electric and high performance. School leaders have a generational opportunity to choose all-electric, high-performance HVAC systems thanks to new funding opportunities, most notably, the Inflation Reduction Act.

This report provides examples of efforts in all three Pillars of the ED-GRS award: 1) reducing environmental impacts; 2) improving health and wellness; and 3) offering effective environmental and sustainability education. Awardees must document progress in all of these Pillars in order to be selected for the federal recognition award.

This national-scale, multi-sector report quantifies projected health effects associated with extreme heat, air quality, changing seasons, flooding, and infectious diseases. Where possible, the analyses consider the extent to which these risks disproportionately fall on children from overburdened populations.

This report provides insights from a national survey on the financial costs and benefits of hiring PK-12 sustainability and environmental health staff to drive better working and learning conditions within schools. The publication highlights professionals from 49 school districts across the country serving 4.1 million students.

This toolkit, provides key resources for champions of sustainable schools to advocate for the hiring of sustainability staff at their school or school district. The toolkit includes facts and tips, general sustainability skills and job responsibilities, job description templates, links to over a dozen actual job descriptions, as well as examples of school system organizational reporting structures to support sustainability staff/teams.