On Sunday, June 28, the Green Sports Alliance launched their 2015 Summit in Chicago with a special Green Apple Day of Service project co-presented by Connor Sports with partners Chicago Public Schools, HOK, Skanska, Excel Dryer, USGBC-Illinois, and the Center for Green Schools at USGBC.

“The Green Sports Alliance is committed to promoting healthy, sustainable communities where we live and play,” said Scott Jenkins, Board Chair of the Green Sports Alliance and Stadium General Manager of AMB Sports & Entertainment Group. “We are excited to support the Center for Green Schools at USGBC’s Green Apple initiative and host local community school volunteer projects in association with our annual Green Sports Alliance Summit. We are striving to advance healthier, higher performing and more economical schools by leveraging the cultural influence of sports. “

Volunteers came together at Robert Healy Elementary School to provide upgrades to the schoolyard and school building façade. By the end of the day, the group of nearly 100 volunteers had built and planted raised bed gardens, painted a sports-themed mural, given fresh coats of paint to the school building exterior, and painted lines for a basketball court, two four-square courts, a hopscotch game and a football field.

“It was a long, full day, but all the hard work really paid off,” said Sara Hoversten, director of operations for the Green Sports Alliance. “We are very proud of what we were able to accomplish as a team in such a short period of time. We know the students and the local community will enjoy and make great use of the upgraded schoolyard.”

Learn more about the Green Apple Day of Service

With the Center for Green School’s Green Apple Day of Service right around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about how your community or classroom can get involved in a local service project to transform schools into healthy, safe and productive learning environments.

USGBC-North Carolina’s very own Emily Scofield offers her first book, CoCo & Dean: Explorers of the World, as inspiration. Scofield’s book provides children with the education and enthusiasm necessary to take on some of the greatest environmental challenges of our time. I interviewed Scofield to learn more and to hear about her Green Apple Day of Service plans.

What inspired you to write CoCo & Dean: Explorers of the World?

ES: When I was growing up, it was my job to collect and crush the family’s aluminum cans.  If I did, I could keep the change from the scrap yard. I understood we were diverting waste from the landfill and that the cans were going into new materials; so, it wasn’t just one and done.

My grandparents lived on 21 acres in my hometown and to me that might as well have been 1000 acres! Being able to roam freely in nature definitely nurtured my appreciation for the natural environment.

Fast forward to my early career, I was an adjunct professor at several colleges in the Charlotte area, teaching courses on issues in science and environmental science, among other things. At the end of a semester, I could see people who came to class with little or no appreciation about how their daily actions impact the environment. But I could also see those who had an understanding and an awareness of these interactions.  Students saw you don’t have to completely overhaul your lifestyle but that you can make modifications to reduce the impact on the planet.

After the birth of my first child, I started jotting down outlines, characters and stories for a children’s fiction book that raises global environmental awareness.

Why is it important to have children’s literature detail the environmental challenges of today?

ES: The void I saw in this genre was big. I feel strongly that children of all ages need to be introduced to environmental issues within and beyond their immediate community. What I have done with CoCo & Dean: Explorers of the World is introduce fun, familiar characters that encounter an environmental issue like eco-impact, waste reduction and plastic trash in the ocean. The message with each story is, “Do not be overwhelmed, but do something” because every positive action contributes to positive change.

How do you envision this book being used in classrooms or for other educational programs?

ES: I worked with several teachers during the proofing of the book. I am grateful for their advice because they really improved the final product. This book is an ideal supplement to environmental lessons for traditional classrooms, homeschool networks, scouts seeking an eco-badge, STEM/Sustainability clubs, and of course USGBC’s green schools outreach! The book contains three short stories with a glossary and sections called ‘Explore Further with CoCo & Dean.’ This section provides discussion points, activities and links to learn more about the environmental issue introduced.

As the Executive Director of the USBGC-NC, do you have any plans for the upcoming Green Apple Day of Service on Sept. 26?

ES: I will be involved in several Green Apple Day of Service projects on and around Sept. 26 and am planning to read “Conquering Rabbit Hill” (the second story in CoCo & Dean: Explorers of the World) and have waste reduction activities and discussions with the students. I think the book is a great tool for the USGBC community and all of our Green Apple volunteers as we look for ways to engage generation green and to assist our teachers.

Do you think you could provide us with a sneak peek of CoCo & Dean’s upcoming adventures?

ES: Absolutely! The second book in the series is already in the works. CoCo & Dean will cover topics of water availability, food supply and energy demands. The second book will also introduce ethnically diverse characters from around the world. Stay tuned! For more information, please visit cocoanddean.com or follow @cocoanddean on Twitter.

This year’s Green Apple Day of Service will take place on Saturday, Sept. 26. Introducing students to books like CoCo & Dean, or 2014’s Willow Watts and the Green Schools Wish, are great ways to participate.

Be sure to check out project ideas, pick up helpful event resources, read about last year's impact, find an event in your area and register your 2015 event today!

A Green Apple Day of Service project from earlier this year has already gained national attention from the likes of the Washington Post and LA’s National Public Radio for its approach to solving the rapid decline in native bee populations.

Staff at PROSOCO, led by sustainability and environment manager Kay Johnson, partnered with a team of architects at Clark | Huesemann, and researchers from the University of Kansas Biological Survey to combat one of the biggest culprits of native bee loss: loss of habitable space. Unlike honeybees, native bees live in solitude, and normally nest in places like dead logs with beetle holes or hollow plant stems.

A rapid decrease in bee population has garnered recent attention because of the vital role bees play in the food chain. These bees are responsible for pollinating some of our most common fruits and vegetables: apples, peaches, cherries, strawberries, onions, green beans, tomatoes and more. Without native bees, much of the livestock that humans eat would be unable to survive.

For this year’s Green Apple Day of Service, volunteers constructed bee hotels to mimic the naturally occurring tunnels used by bees to lay eggs and nest. Working together with a local Girl Scout troop, they created thousands of tunnels using bamboo, paper, and wood—enough space for a total of about 3,000 bees at a time.

PROSOCO, which produces energy-efficient, minimum-impact products for the construction industry, contributed some of its own building materials to the project. Johnson explained that the bee hotel project was important to the company because of their commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. “We hope to inspire other companies to build their own bee hotels for their local bees,” she said. On how other companies can get involved in the Day of Service, Johnson suggests, “finding what sustainability commitment and corporate responsibility initiative makes the most sense for your company and act on it. Then, tell people about it so they can learn from and be encouraged by your leadership. Every company should have a bee hotel story.”

Bee hotels are not a new idea, but are only recently gaining popularity as an innovative tool to combat the decline in bee population. “Especially in Europe, some of these have been around hundreds of years. So we should have been paying attention,” Johnson points out.

Those who are interested in constructing their own bee hotels can follow an easy set of instructions provided by the National Geographic, or see the group’s bee hotel instructions. Bee hotels are a great way to engage students with the ecosystem that exists right in the schoolyard. Consider this or a whole colony of ideas for Green Apple Day of Service by visiting greenapple.org. 

Sign up your event today

The Green Apple Day of Service brings together thousands of students, teachers, parents and community leaders from around the globe to improve our school environments through service projects, education, community events and more. 

This year's Green Apple Day of Service will take place on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2015.

Register your 2015 project today

Be sure to check out project ideas, pick up helpful event resources, read about last year's impact and find an event in your area.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a time to focus on what we can do for others, something we know that supporters of the green schools movement do all year long. 

Last year saw the biggest turnout ever for Green Apple Day of Service. More than 3,800 events, projects and commitments took place in 43 countries, with 306,000 volunteers supporting the learning environments of more than two million students. 

Would you have guessed that at least 40% of volunteers spent the third annual Day of Service outside? The Center for Green Schools team was out in the September sunshine here in D.C., but we know that people around the world were participating in all kinds of projects:

• At the Muskegon, Michigan farmers market, students (and adults too!) learned about healthy eating by taste testing new vegetables and herbs
• At Chicago’s High School for the Arts, architects and engineers volunteered to install a recycling center and install a green wall inside of the school
• In Mexico, students at the Instituto Thomas Jefferson learned how to make their own toxic-free cleaning products, and started campaigns to rid their school of plastic water bottles

Check out our infographic to get the whole story on this year’s stats, and share it with your volunteers and community. 

Thank you to all of the hard working volunteers that participated in 2014's Green Apple Day of Service. We’re already planning for this year, and hope you are too! Sign up your project today, and stay in touch with the Green Apple team all year long. 

On Sept. 27, 2014, Green Technologies Dubai, a USGBC Education Partner, carried the message of environmental protection to St. Anthony’s Maha Vidyalaya School, Allogaollewa, in rural Sri Lanka. The co-ed school, which was specially selected by the directors of Green Technologies and serves approximately 300 students from kindergarten to grade 11 was home to the first ever Green Apple Day of Service in Sri Lanka.

Sept. 27 was set aside for Green Apple Day of Service, a day to remember for the students, teachers and all who participated. The principal of the school, who is also the priest of the nearby parish church, enthusiastically took charge to make this event a success, both from a knowledge and awareness standpoint with added fun to make the event enjoyable.

The day’s agenda included many events, including a poster competition and an essay competition. Both were based on the theme of the day: energy, water savings and the protection of the environment.

The winners of the two competitions were selected by a representative from the Education Department as well as a principal of another school. Three winners were chosen from each of the eleven grades, for a total of 66 winners in all. Each winner was given a certificate as well as a cash prize. Two winners were chosen from higher grades, one girl and one boy, who were each presented with a bicycle. Each of the 22 teachers who taught the kids the special message were also presented with a gift and certificate in recognition of their hard work, which went into making the event a success.

There was more! A guest artist, Mr. Jayathilaka Bandara, was invited to bring the message of the day to perfect light with a musical show which was specially created with poems and songs carefully selected highlighting the theme of the day. Other events included songs and poems, plays, dances and awards, and food and drink. The smiles on the students’ young faces were enough evidence of the pleasure and happiness this day brought to everybody.

A further highlight of the day was the unveiling of a mural, drawn by a local architect and his wife, depicting the Chief of Seattle’s message: “We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children”. The principal of the school commissioned this mural to cover a prominent wall of the school by the roadside, to be seen by all passersby.  This mural honors the first ever Green Apple Day of Service in Sri Lanka, and the only school in the country to have been chosen by Green Technologies to host this event.

One of the Green Technologies team members who hails from India gave a speech in Sinhala, one of the local languages in Sri Lanka. The presentation showed how kids can help clean the environment and keep the sickness-bearing mosquitoes away. Kids were encouraged to locate trees that grow easily in their area and plant fruit and flower trees in their home gardens. 

The entire event was funded by a group of well-wishers from Green Technologies Dubai, who are committed to the message and the wellbeing of children in a developing environment. It is no wonder that one week after the event, the principal of the school received the Best Principal Award in the Kekirawa district, presented by the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.

The San Diego Green Building Council (SDGBC) and Balfour Beatty Construction recently partnered with John J. Montgomery Elementary School in Chula Vista, CA, to host the 3rd annual Green Apple Day of Service. 

On Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014, the school was abuzz as more than 75 volunteers, including students, came out to green the campus by performing service work and commencing a year-long Green Schools Challenge.

Brian Cahill, Balfour Beatty's Southwest Division President said his team felt privileged to be there, breaking a sweat with fellow subcontractors, vendors, and members of the district to improve the school. "Everyone is excited about it, and we are happy to be part of it." 

 Volunteers completed a wide range of projects around the school, including:

• Creating and planting a new student garden
• Painting a mural (with help of a professional artist and students)
• Installing new irrigation, weeding, and general painting
• Landscaping including new mulch, fencing, plants, and walkways

The work at Montgomery Elementary will improve the learning environment for students and teachers to come—every child deserves a healthy and sustainable school. 

Check out our video to see the 2014 Green Apple Day of Service team in action! 

More than 3,700 service projects took place throughout the world with hundreds of thousands of volunteers participating

Washington, DC – (Sept. 29, 2014) – The third annual Green Apple Day of Service, which took place on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014, brought together hundreds of thousands of volunteers participating in 3,760 service projects in all 50 states and in 42 countries throughout the world. An initiative of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the Day of Service brings together students, teachers, parents, elected officials, organizations and companies to transform their schools into healthy, safe, cost-efficient and productive learning places.

This year’s Day of Service featured a flagship event in Washington, D.C. where U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and his family joined volunteers at Tubman Elementary School for gardening and painting projects and several sustainability education activities for students and their families.

"At the Center for Green Schools, we’re continually inspired by the dedication of local communities and volunteers to improve the places where our children learn,” said Rachel Gutter, director of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC. “On this third annual Green Apple Day of Service, we couldn’t be more humbled by the sheer volume of activity to transform our schools and communities. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the globe are sending a clear message that where we learn matters. To each and every one of these dedicated individuals we say, thank you.”  

Cities and towns across the country and around the world were active in the Day of Service events: In Chicago, volunteers convened at John M. Smyth Magnet and IB World School to make improvements at the school including the building of new garden boxes, weeding in existing gardens and creating a restorative space in the school for students.

Students at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Atlanta updated the community garden, participated in a school-wide clean up and recycling initiative, launched an environmental awareness program and encouraged student-led “trash-to-treasure” recycling projects. To commemorate this effort, the school also created a mural representing the Cristo Rey motto to promote environmental sustainability.

In New Orleans, the Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development is renovating a 130-year-old barge board house into an environmental education and visitor center. The site will give visitors the ability to peek into the construction and see the types of energy efficiency upgrades that have been made to the house, serving as a model of energy efficiency and as a neighborhood hub in the Lower 9th Ward community. 

At the Instituto Thomas Jefferson, thousands of students across all five Mexico City and Guadalajara campuses made personal commitments to sustainability at their school, taking action on school-wide campaigns in support of recycling, habitat restoration, water conservation and more.  

Many of today’s schools are beset by a host of challenges that compromise our children’s health and wellness, causing everything from asthma to headaches and concentration issues. Green Apple is a global movement to put all children in schools where they have clean and healthy air to breathe, where energy and resources are conserved, and where they can be inspired to dream of a brighter future. The Green Apple Day of Service presents an opportunity for students, teachers, parents, elected officials, organizations, companies and more to take action in their communities and demonstrate that where we learn matters. For more information visit mygreenapple.org.  

To call school important is a serious understatement. It’s where roughly a quarter of all Americans spend their days. It’s a place to mold minds and shape behaviors, which makes it the ideal place to not only raise awareness about energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, but to implement practices that can become habits and create the next generation of sustainability leaders.

That is precisely why the Center for Green Schools' Green Apple Day of Service is so important to United Technologies. As a founding sponsor of the Center, we’re invested in the mission of putting every student in a green school within this generation. We understand the benefits that goal could achieve. This isn’t about efficiencies gained at the bricks and mortar level, it’s about our students and teachers and their health and productivity.

A study in Denmark found the average performance of schoolwork improved by 8 to 14 percent simply by doubling the outdoor air supply rate. The same study found another 2 to 4 percent learning improvement just by lowering classroom temperatures by 2 degrees during hot seasons. Together at the high end of the range, that’s nearly a 20 percent improvement in performance. One made possible by green schools. Green schools aren’t only a capital investment—more importantly they are a human investment.

Getting there, though, is a two-stage process. Modernizing our schools to improve ventilation and increase access to daylight is absolutely critical. Equally as critical is education. We need to make sure that all-important link between health and buildings isn’t missed. A recent study by McGraw-Hill found a only third of family doctors and general practitioners believe that buildings even impact human health.

That brings us back to our schools. What better place to start making that building-health connection? Small lessons and learnings can result in significant actions and measurable results. Here at United Technologies, our employees are proud to volunteer in Green Apple Day of Service events in the U.S., China and India. Whether it’s constructing sustainable landscaping beds, installing rain barrels or creating artwork to raise awareness, we’re getting kids thinking about sustainability. 

This is UTC’s third year to participate in the Green Apple Day of Service—a fact that we’re excited about. Our 20 events this year reached thousands of students, building on our work last year and the year before.

Now multiply that effort and think about what we can accomplish as a broader group. Together, all of us—and last year there were more than 200,000 of us—are planting deep sustainability roots. We’re reaching millions of students and raising millions of dollars to turn thinking into doing, and doing into learning in healthier, more productive environments.

So, let’s polish up those green apples and keep the momentum from this year’s Green Apple Day of Service going. Our schools are ripe with potential and so are the 700 million children who spend their days there.

Find a Green Apple Day of Service project

My mother was a teacher at my high school. I know what comes to mind — some scene from 16 Candles of ultimate teenage embarrassment and disdain, but that’s not how I felt. Instead, I just never needed the, “Woah, my teacher is a person” realization when you finally see them out in the wild, like grocery shopping or at the mall. Although seeing my science teacher, Mrs. Smirkovski, at the movies on my 8th grade date was quite the shock to me, teachers were always people. People I loved.

This time of year is particularly busy for teachers, so the Green Apple Day of Service is a perfect opportunity to show your teachers that you care. I hope you will join me in making a simple, impactful commitment to the teachers in your life.

Here are some things you could do:

• Clean it up: Help a teacher dust and clean their classroom to reduce allergens and improve indoor air quality.
• Share the story: Donate a sustainability themed book to a classroom library (The Lorax, What Does It Mean to Be Green, etc.).
• Create signage: Create and share signage for the classroom about using less energy and water (this saves schools money, too!).
• Love of nature: Contribute to a classroom by donating a classroom plant or contributing to a school garden.
• School supplies: Donate environmentally responsible supplies such as FSC certified tissues or recycled paper.

What I’ve learned from the teachers in my life is that good teachers are always on the job. In addition to the long hours of daily preparation, lessons, and parent meetings, teachers  carry their students’ stories, worries, joys, and challenges around with them all year.

A healthy, sustainable learning environment impacts students and teachers alike, and there is no better time to show your commitment to sustainability and the teachers in your life than showing you care. Be it a classroom or makeshift desks in a basement, where we learn matters.

Tell us about your commitment