The Wake Green Schools Partnership is a collaborative group of school teachers and administrators, informal environmental educators, parents, university, business, local, state & federal government and non-profit community partners. We share common goals of engaging school communities to increase school sustainability and environmental literacy indoors and out. We seek to do this by
· Sharing stories and resources for reducing environmental impacts and integrating environmental education across the school curriculum.
· Creating an active network to develop and further school sustainability.
The Wake Green Schools Partnership grew out of a symposium organized by The University of North Carolina Environmental Finance Center in February 2019. Seventy participants from Wake County Public School System, local governments, local nonprofits, and academia attended. The participants learned about and discussed opportunities to support the greening of schools through efforts such as renewable energy, stormwater management, waste reduction and environmental literacy. This meeting of the minds energized attendees in ways they had not imagined. Their overwhelming interest in continuing the work led to the formation of three work teams to advance a new partnership. These teams included the Policy/Finance, Environmental Literacy and Pilot Projects teams coordinated by UNC Environmental Finance Center, NC Water Resources Research Institute, Wake County Environmental Services (Water Quality) and WakeUp Wake County.
The Environmental Literacy Team hosted the “Wake Green Schools Partnership Kick-off Event” on March 9, 2020, with sponsorship from WakeUP Wake County, NC Water Resources Research Institute and support from Wake County Public School System and Apex High School. Over 170 people participated in this networking and learning event with teachers and community partners. The overwhelming positive feedback from participants has buoyed the team to move the Wake Green Schools Partnership forward.
Today, the Wake Green Schools Partnership has one leadership team that meets monthly, with work teams meeting separately as needed depending upon current initiatives. All are welcome to participate! We are a coordinated collaborative grounds-up effort that runs on the passion and talents of its members.
Anyone who is interested in supporting this effort can join the conversation by joining the Google Group, a forum for email discussions. All communications and notice of events and volunteer opportunities will be shared via the Google Group .