What is green education?
As there are many definitions, we define green education as “the journey to an acute awareness of our interdependence on natural, social and economic systems.”
What do you mean by Green Campus ?
When you list the results of your search you can see next to Degree Type Green Campus. Here, we honor the specific efforts of educational institutions when it comes to lowering the negative environmental (and social) impacts of their operation. Some have developed their own individual programs while others have signed up with organizations such as The Green Report Card, ULSF, ISCN, or AASHE to help with this process. For more information on these organizations go here.
I love abbreviations, so who is AASHE ?
The 5 letters stand for Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Their mission is to empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation. AASHE employs the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) program as a rating tool for university and college campus initiatives towards sustainability goals.
There is that word again. Why should I care about sustainability?
Sustainability is essentially to live within the means of your immediate environment. So what does that tell me now? It suggests that your ecological footprint ought to be at or below 1 planet earth; not six or three…, just ONE! It’s challenging but the right thing to do. You should care, because of the following undisputed facts:
- world population is increasing
- the world economy is growing
- natural resources like forests, animal, plant and insect diversity, clean water, healthy soil and air are diminishing at an alarming rate
- waste and pollution from our economic activity is increasing
- the gap between the rich and poor is increasing
- uneven and unfair distribution of wealth and resources is a major source for conflict
- technology alone will not solve the problem
So in addition we need to change our behavior.
Truth is that no one really likes doing that. We didn’t like some of the changes ourselves. But we realized that what we don’t like more is the thought that our children and grandchildren will be very disappointed at least when they find out we didn’t even try.
Get real now. How does an online portal help green education?
Through non-profits such as Donorschoose.org, which funds K-12 classroom projects, the GreenDegreeDirectory.com identifies projects that qualify for what we have defined as “green” and sends funding their way.
