Green (Home) School

Starting out this morning with the moon fully above us in the sky (Brendan said: 'Mom, it's still pitch black!')  We made a spur of the moment trip to Houston today after an invite from our dear friend, Tamberly, from the National Forestry Service.  She was leading a program to install schools into the Green School program (associated to Project Learning Tree).  We were so excited to join her in this newest endeavor offered to bring nature into the classroom.

We had to leave at 5am...packing children barely awake into the car along with their school books (We were supposed to start back to school routine today!).  When they woke up (hungry and then fed!), I read the lessons for history and English/composition.  This got us through most of the school lessons for the day.  The boys would later complete written work on the trip home.

We arrived at a new school designed to be more environmentally effective and accessible.  We learned about creating landscape and outdoor classrooms.  We learned about websites to encourage this type of classroom activities.

We were very thankful for the tips on energy efficiency.  The boys especially enjoyed the use of laser guns (to check the heat emitted from surfaces in the building!), temperature/humidity gauges, and wattage testers.  They went around the classroom testing all areas and machines for energy efficiency.

We also learned how to determine the value of trees on a property.  The information that I was most excited about was the trail guide...this website allows anyone to create a trail path (usually done on public trails but can be used to create a trail on any piece of land) with GPS coordinates and uploaded pictures of plants.  We also learned about different organizations that want to help public and private landowners protect their land.

The Green School program is meant for public and private schools but it was good to see the different concepts.  It was also nice to see that we can already consider ourselves a green school...learning about our environment and giving back to the community when we are able.

Oh!  Amanda got the best deal of the day...her very own Red Tailed Boa!  She has always wanted one so she begged to let us bring it home on a trial basis.  All I can say is I have grown more open over the years to these little critters but I never thought we would have one in our home!

A fun way to spend our first day back to school...leave it to us to take a day long field trip and still get a good day of book learning also!  Hopefully, tomorrow is not so exciting!  We are worn out!