Cool School Challenge - Is Your School Cool?

The Cool School Challenge has come to Lane County, and now is the time to sign up and discover how cool your school really is!

The Cool School Challenge is an educational and leadership development program that engages students and teachers in practical strategies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions schoolwide. At the heart of the Cool School Challenge is the philosophy that big changes start with small steps, and that taken together, simple individual actions create a world of difference.

The Goal is to be Cool

In addition to reducing carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases in and around schools, other goals of the Cool School Challenge are to: 

• Educate young people, and by proxy their families, about climate change and everyday actions they can take to reduce their impact locally and globally;
• Encourage student leadership and empowerment;
• Foster a community of teachers/students working together to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions; and
• Foster a new generation of environmental/air quality advocates.

Take the Challenge!

The Cool School Challenge can be administered by anyone your school designates to be a Challenge Coordinator, such as a teacher, administrator, or even a student organization. The role of the Challenge Coordinator is to support and oversee the Student Challenge Leaders in implementing the program at your school.

Student Challenge Leaders can be any interested class or group of students. Under the guidance of a Challenge Coordinator, they will learn how to conduct a classroom energy audit. They will then recruit as many classrooms as possible into the Challenge, helping them measure their CO2 emissions and then develop a strategy to reduce these emissions. Student Challenge Leaders monitor the progress of the participating classrooms and look for ways to motivate and inspire classrooms to achieve the greatest reductions possible.

Get Started

Ready to take the challenge? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for help with planning, resources, and getting started.  We'll assist you in completing the following steps:

1. Build a team
Bring interested people together, such as students, teachers, administrators or other school staff. Designate someone to serve as Challenge Coordinator, responsible for supporting and guiding students. Then identify students -- an entire class or a school club -- to serve as Student Challenge Leaders, who will recruit classroom participation, create CO2 reduction plans for each classroom, and monitor, evaluate, and summarize the school's accomplishments.

2. Decide on a timeline
Develop a realistic timeframe for implementing the Challenge, which can range from one month to an entire school year. Shorter timeframes can be amortized for an entire school year. sample timeframe

4. Develop a participation strategy
Spend some time thinking about how to maximize participation in the Challenge. A lot of the actions we can take to protect the environment are fairly simple, such as turning off the lights! What are some ways you can motivate and inspire schoolmates to actively participate in the Challenge?

Conduct an Audit

Once a Cool School Challenge team is in place and ready to start reducing emissions at your school, the next step is to conduct an audit to learn how much CO2 is being emitted -- and from where.

Begin by learning how to conduct an energy audit of your own classroom, estimating CO2 emissions from electricity, heating, waste and transportation. Then, student teams recruit teachers from throughout the school (as many as possible!) to participate in the Challenge, and conduct audits of each of their classrooms to find CO2 reduction opportunities. This information will be used to develop an action plan, outlining the various ways the classroom can reduce CO2 emissions. classroom audit kit

Create an Action Plan

Based on the results of the classroom audit, the Student Challenge Leaders will develop an action plan for each classroom to help them successfully reduce their CO2 emissions by 2000 lbs or more over the course of the school year. action tips

Take the Pledge

Teachers who accept the Cool School Action Plan will then make a ‘pledge’ to implement the plan. Student Challenge Leaders will gather and compile pledges for tracking purposes. It’s not a bad idea to have a designated “scorekeeper” to create a log of classrooms and their CO2 reduction goals. pledge form

Monitor and Evaluate

Student Challenge Leaders should periodically check in with each classroom to monitor progress and troubleshoot any difficulties with the action plan.

At the end of the study period, Student Challenge Leaders will:

• Conduct a post-survey with each teacher to determine CO2 saved in that classroom.
• Use the results of the post-surveys to estimate the amount of CO2 classrooms would save in one school year, if they continued the activities outlined in their action plan.
• Prepare a Cool School Challenge Report Card for each classroom, summarizing their results.

Share the Results

Tally the results for all classrooms, and share them with everyone who participated, the principal, the whole school, or even your school board.

Partners for Sustainable Schools would love to hear how your school did and will post your results on our website, in order to share your achievements with other schools and community members.  You can see how your school did compared with other schools in the area, and share any tips and strategies that might help other schools meet their goals.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to send us your results.

Financial support for the Cool School Challenge in Lane County is provided by an EWEB Partners in Education grant, and technical support is provided by EWEB.  Challenge materials and sample documents provided courtesy of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. You can learn more about the Cool School Challenge at www.coolschoolchallenge.org.