As my second week at Green Columbus wraps up, there is so much to report! Perhaps most significantly, my project has completely changed! Our initial plan to design and implement a supplemental environmental education program for local elementary schools has been totally scraped-after more in-depth research we discovered a wealth of fantastic elementary school programs already in place. It was wonderful to see so many programs designed to support environmental awareness for children already in use because environmental awareness, like most important ideals, needs to be introduced and reinforced at an early age. With so many resources already available for educators, Erin and I decided to instead create and facilitate a Green Schools Initiative/Network for Columbus Public Schools. I will work with Erin to bring together existing local Green Teams (groups designed to implement eco-friendly policies) and help to create new ones. What is exciting is that Green Teams are most often used for homes/businesses and while Green Teams for schools have begun to emerge, Columbus does not have one so the process should be very exciting! I will be specifically in charge of contacting the schools to coordinate interested parties/administrators/teachers/parents and designing the resource guide for the Green Teams created out of our initiative. The past week I organized the first six school districts we will be contacting and researched the existing Green School Initiatives in Oregon and California as well as Green Teams in general. Next week I will begin contacting the district administrators and further work on my resource guide for how to create Green Teams. I am going to be a Green Teams expert by the end of next week!

In addition, this week I also began to explore our Facebook page which will soon become my responsibility to update and manage. As soon as our page is up to par, I will send a shout out! Next week, Erin and I will also begin brainstorming next month’s Green Drinks event (an excellent opportunity to engage with the local environmental community in dialog while also enjoying some adult beverages and when the details are finalized I will definitely broadcast) as well as continue working on Green Columbus table materials for upcoming events we will be attending. I also got a key to the office yesterday-it was kind of awesome!

-Alex