How can you make your classroom more sustainable?

There’s a lot of multiplying when you’re a Teacher. Often you multiply everything you do and buy by the number of students you have in class. Then if an activity or resource is reoccurring, you must multiply your supplies, resources, and time again. It can be draining. And it isn’t just draining on you, it’s draining on the environment. What are some ways you can make your classroom more sustainable? How do you turn sustainability into a positive theme in your classroom?

What is sustainability?

Sustainability means humans and the environment can coexist productively without harm to the environment. Humans must create conditions where there is long-lasting harmony between people and the environment so that resources are not depleted.

How can you promote a green classroom with environmentally friendly strategies?

Kids are sponges, and they soak in everything going on in a classroom. As an educator, you’re teaching your students through implicit examples and explicit lessons in your classroom. The best place to start is with classroom culture. You can bring a greener mindset to your classroom by making simple adjustments. Your students will see this and begin to internalize this. But also have control over how each of your students consumes resources while in your class, which can add up fast.

What are things that you can target for sustainability in your classroom?

Take inventory over where you are consuming resources the most in your classroom. Here are some common places to consider:

Paper

If you’re using a ream of paper of week in your classroom, that can total 1-2 trees per school year in paper consumption. Going paperless as much as possible can help. TeacherMade is a great online resource that converts your paper worksheets and PDFs to online interactive digital worksheets. Try it out for FREE here.

Waste

If you’re using a lot of paper in your classroom, then you’re inevitably producing a lot of waste. Try incorporating a simple recycling system near your trashcan. This can have a huge impact on lowering your footprint in the classroom.

Energy

Teachers don’t always have the ability to change energy consumption in the classroom. But if you can make quick switches for things like LED bulbs, you can significantly reduce your energy consumption each day in the classroom. LED bulbs use 75% less energy compared to traditional bulbs.

What are some online resources for helping with sustainability in the classroom?

We think the best place to focus your efforts on sustainability in the classroom is by going paperless. Here are a few apps that can help ease that transition and produce meaningful change.

Google Classroom is the ideal central hub

Before going paperless, it’s essential to set up a digital classroom that makes it easy for your students (and you!) to stay organized. This way, you will stick with the paperless classroom mindset. Google Classroom works excellent for this. You can post assignments and communicate effortlessly with this LMS platform.

GradeCam makes assessments easy with reusable scantrons.

Big tests can use up a lot of paper, and often Teachers are wary of putting these materials online. If you’re in this boat, GradeCam can help. GradeCam is like a traditional ScanTron machine without any specialized equipment. You just create a class set of the test, print off answer sheets for bubbling, and then photograph each answer sheet. This allows you to use less paper each time you give a test.

TeacherMade converts your existing handouts to digital worksheets.

The best tool for a paperless classroom is TeacherMade. TeacherMade makes it easy to take existing worksheets (paper, image, PDF, Docx) and convert them into digital w orksheets. It’s easy, just upload your file. This file becomes the background for your interactive worksheet. Then add your question fields on top of this background. You can even add in an answer key for self-scoring. Then just send the link to your students or post it to Google Classroom. You won’t go back to paper handouts after using TeacherMade.