Healthy Schools
Healthy Learning Environments Inspire Students
Schools and early childcare centers (ECEs) inspire our children to collaborate, read, write, solve problems, explore science, history, language, and art. Healthy, dynamic learning environments motivate development of healthy behaviors; provide the opportunity for each child to explore their place and impact on Earth; and stimulate their desire to protect the world we all share.
School buildings have the power to make learning easier or more difficult. A room brightly lit with natural light, clean air, air temperature that’s not to hot or not too cold, and one void of air contaminants gives children the ability to think without hindrance. Schools whose administration, teachers, and students actively conserve water, energy, and other natural resources, either by design or behavior, become district leaders.
Campuses utilizing edible and pollinator gardens and other outdoor learning settlings and encouraging student field trips to local natural and historic places, inspire children to love each other and nature while learning core competencies, staying healthy and happy, becoming resilient, and setting them on a course for success.
Connecting Schools & Community. Administrations supporting strong parent and local business involvement…tutoring, mentoring, or working together with students in schoolyards and gardens…build healthy, strong, resilient communities. The value of our shared resource...schools...cannot be understated. Using our schools as a shared asset is a benefit for the whole community!
Visualize a Healthy Learning Environment
I work with school district, individual school/administrators, facilities, and school architects/engineers to design, update, and implement practices to:
- Improve the health of school occupants, buildings, and grounds;
- Inspire active student learning...learning with a purpose;
- Save district/school/tax-payers money; and
- Reduce the school's impact on our Earth
My lived experience as an engineer with an emphasis in water resources and environmental pollution control; long-time role as my children’s school's Community Service & Sustainability Advisor and Kids for Saving Earth Club Founder; leadership in regional collaboratives and Advisory Boards who's missions are to protect the natural environment and provide equitable access to nature for all children; certifications in designing and implementing gardens and outdoor learning environments; and passion for the health & education of all children and protection of our shared Earth gives me the unique perspective to be able to identify and prioritize healthy changes (“tweaks”) that are readily implementable, effective, and inspired.
Partnering for Healthy School Communities
Allow me to hear about your school’s desires and priorities, and together we can:
- Develop a vision for your school’s commitment to stewardship of all people and the planet.
- Change behaviors supporting sustainable habits, preserving natural resources, reducing waste, and eliminating chemical exposure.
- Design outdoor learning environments, start an edible or pollinator garden, plant trees, and integrate nature into inspired and purposeful learning at your school.
- Identify your school’s stakeholders...administration, teachers, staff, students, parents, and the community...creating unity and purpose.
- Identify curriculum integrating the concepts nature, the built environment, children's health, environmental health, and sustainability.
- Introduce you to free/low cost health and eco-competitions involving the whole school to support physical and mental well-being and conserve natural resources, thus being fiscal stewards of tax-payer dollars.
- Become a NWF Eco-School/ECHO, EcoRise, Green School Alliance School, and/or a Green Ribbon School
- Start a Student Eco-Club at your school
Additional Health & Learning Resources
During this unprecedented, post-COVID era for our schools and pre-schools, it is more important than ever to maintain a healthy indoor environment, and use the great outdoors and schoolyards as learning environments. Many of the organizations listed below (Helpful Links) provide guidance on teaching and stay connected to nature. See also Champion for our Children: Indoor Health & Outdoor Learning Resources for tips and tools for teachers, parents, and school districts.
Helpful Links
I encourage you to visit the following websites, select several to become your favorites,* and implement their concepts a little at a time, building on your school’s successes. Please contact me for specific help or ideas!
- Green Schoolyards for Healthy Communities
- Learning Outside
- Early Childhood Nature Connections Toolkit
Environmental Protection Agency
- Protecting Children's Environmental Health
- Children's Health Curriculum
- Creating Healthy Indoor Air Quality in Schools
- Healthy School Environments
- Managing Pests in Schools
- Storm Smart Schools: Integrating Green Infrastructure to Meet Compliance & Promote Environmental Literacy
Green Ribbon Schools, U.S. Department of Education
Green School Alliance
Healthy Tweaks: Equity in Learning--Healthy Schools & Outdoor Classrooms
Houston Environmental Resources Exchange - Citizens Environmental Coalition
Houston Urban Wildlife Refuge Partnership / HPARD Curriculum in Nature
National Environmental Education Foundation
National Center for Safe Routes to School
Nature Lab Youth Curriculum by The Nature Conservancy
North American Association for Environmental Education
Outdoor Learning Environment (OLE!) Texas: DSHS
Take Care of Texas, Education
Texas Children in Nature Network: Healthier, Happier, Smarter
- Best Practices & How To's: Collection of Guides to Help Create Nature Spaces Near You
- Webinars & Workshops
*If you find one or more of these websites helpful, please consider contributing to the non-profit organization that brings us this important information.
Remember!
You can't educate people that are not healthy. But you certainly can't keep them healthy if they're not educated.” Joycelyn Elders
In the end, we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; we and we will understand only what we’re taught. Baba Dioum