Green Activities

Using Activities to Become a Michigan Green School

A school is eligible to receive a Green School, Emerald School, or Evergreen School Environmental Stewardship Designation if the school or students perform the required number of activities, with a minimum of two activities from each of the four categories. The activity requirements for each level of environmental stewardship designation are as follows:

Green School | 10 total activities with at least two activities from each of the four categories
Emerald School | 15 total activities at least two activities from each of the four categories
Evergreen School | 20 total activities at least two activities from each of the four categories

The four categories of activities for official green school qualification are:

Reduce/Reuse/Recycle
Energy
Environmental Protection
Miscellaneous.

Check out the application for the specifics on the activities in each of the four categories.

In addition to the activities listed in the table portion of the application, a school may design and propose another activity, listed as “other”, which may qualify toward an environmental designation.

Important Note: All alternate activities listed as "other" must be approved by your Michigan Green School County Coordinator by December 1, 2016. All applications are due March 1, 2017.

Suggested Activities for 2016

Host a bake sale benefiting the the National Park's fundraising drive
Have a poster contest promoting new ways to recycle
Adopt a policy of buying some chlorine free office paper to help this industry grow. Chlorine from paper processing is a major polluter.
Have a geography map lesson with cities and countries doing great new environmental projects. Discuss how Michigan stacks up with them.
Cornell University is asking for your photos of Ladybugs for a national study of their variety and numbers. Submit your photos and your location to ladybug@cornell.edu
Host an old towel and fleece blanket drive. Our animal shelters need these items consistently. Check-in with your town's shelter to drop off these items.
Plan your garden with native Michigan plants. All of the plants listed below support Michigan wildlife and our falling bee population. Above all, make sure that your garden is pesticide free for the health of students, to protect the bees, and other creatures.
- Blue Lupine
- Coneflowers
- Black-eyed Susans
- Blazing Star
- Goldenrod
New items that can be recycled are pens, markers, toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes. Have students make a canister to put in the library, or another popular location in the school, and drop them off. Classrooms can have a contest! Terracycle.com pays schools for these items.
Broken crayons can be recycled at CrazyCrayons.com
Hold an old pots and pans drive. Each county has a metal recycling facility. They are easy to find online and many pay by the pound. This is a great way to earn class funds!
One of our favorite activities is to Adopt-a-Senior Citizen. Your classroom can contact a senior center to get the name of someone who would be delighted to receive some homemade door draft guards. Many seniors live alone without family.
Host a speaker to talk about ways to protect our seriously declining honey bee population. It has dropped by over 30%! Bees are necessary to pollinate so many of our crops. Check to see what state and local agencies are hosting bee protection seminars. Design a bee information bulletin board like the Goens Learning Center in Van Buren County. Dexter Elementary has created a beekeeping club!
Adopt an endangered animal. Many schools vote on what animal they will ceremonially adopt from The World Wildlife Federation, local nature center, or other worthwhile organizations that can be found online. The school receives a picture and a certificate of adoption!
Have a Save the Frogs bracelet sale. The world's frogs, which support sensitive ecosystems, are going extinct at a surprising rate. These creatures support other animals up the food chain making their loss even more grave. SavetheFrogs.com has a kit with all the materials an ecology or school green team needs.

Raise awareness of the federally endangered Karner Blue butterfly by printing out this 8.5" x 11" coloring sheet for children to color. Read more about the Karner Blue in the Michigan Wildlife Awareness sidebar on our About Us page with more ideas for activities.

Save the Hawk coloring sheet. An accurate coloring chart is also available by visiting the tool bar under more... on this website.
Schools can also discover a number of Michigan threatened and endangered species by looking at the book, Fly Over Michigan. There are coloring pages with an accurate coloring chart for Kirtland's Warbler, the short eared owl and others. The book is available on amazon.

Save the Short-Eared Owl coloring sheet

Fun Ways to Earn Points!

Many Michigan Green Schools are developing waste free lunch plans. This saves the school money, student calories and keeps the most harmful greenhouse gas, methane, at lower levels.

Michigan Wildlife Awareness

Photo by James Harding, Michigan DNR

The trumpeter swan is a threatened species in Michigan. These swans are often confused with snow geese and mistakenly shot by hunters. 1,300 trumpeters have died in the United States from lead poisoning when they ingest lead shot and lead sinkers in ponds.

Highland Pines School in Caro, Michigan made a donation to The Trumpeter Swan Society in 2016.

More Activity Tips:

Have a small compost jar in your classroom for fruit scraps and put them on the school shrubs. It makes a great fertilizer.
Students can go on a field trip to visit a Nature Center or Zoo to learn more about reptiles and amphibians
During Earth Week have a plastic bottle free day. Paper or glass is a much healthier alternative.

Bottle Cap Mural Lesson Plan
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