Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon

The Parkers Prairie Green Team have been researching ways that the student body can help conserve energy. Here are a few helpful tips that we found:

Cut down on transportation.
• Instead of each teenager driving in on their own, you could carpool with a friend who lives nearby.
• If you don’t have any activities going on after or before school, take the bus.
• Bus companies could ask drivers to turn off the bus instead of idling while waiting for kids to load the bus.
• If you live in town, especially in seasons other than winter, walk or bike to school.
Save our resources.
• Keep a reusable water bottle with you, instead of buying plastic bottles each day.
• Have teachers keep one row of lights off during classes, and turn lights off while the room isn’t occupied.
• If there are any leaking faucets or cracked windows and doors, hold a fundraiser to replace the appliances.
• Shut computer monitors down when they’re not in use (except for libraries).
Making changes outside.
• Plant trees around the building (evergreen on the north, deciduous trees on the south and west).
• Replace grass that’s constantly thirsty with ground covers.
• Hold a “tree drive”, where the community can donate saplings to the school.
• Plant trees near air conditioners.
Reduce, reuse, recycle (of course)!
• Have a group of students go around weekly to collect recyclable materials from classrooms.
• For those who bring lunches from home, use a lunch box, not paper bags, etc.
• Reuse the backs of paper, print homework, etc, on double-sided sheets of paper.