Posts Tagged ‘students’

How Green Is The College You Are Applying To? Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 Not too long ago, prospective college students looked for academic rankings, up-to-date technology, along with general atmosphere and extracurricular activities when deciding their institution of choice.   Now, along with these factors, students are on a mission to locate campuses with lofty sustainability reports.  There are other resource sites that offer reviews regarding how “green” a campus might be, but the Green Report Card, a.k.a The College Sustainability Report Card is the first interactive site that reports on sustainability initiatives for over 300 colleges and universities in The United States and Canada. There is no doubt that major in-depth research has gone into developing, The Green Report Card.  In fact, this year’s results showed that while many schools’ endowments fell during the global recession, their efforts to be both environmentally and socially sustainable increased.  Colleges and universities are demonstrating that sustainability is good for the bottom line and for the environment. According to an October 7, 2009 press release, “More than 95 percent of participating institutions agreed to share the inner workings of their green practices, resulting in over 10,000 pages of detailed data and descriptions. Overall, the College Sustainability Report Card has the highest response rate of any college sustainability ranking or rating…. Sixty-eight percent of 12,715 high school students applying to college, who were recently polled by the Princeton Review, said that they would value having information about a college’s commitment to the environment. To help students search, the Report Card website offers comparison of up to 10 schools at a time.” The Green Report Card is ideal for the prospective college-bound student, involved parent as well as college students, faculty and alumni desiring to improve the sustainability on their campuses.  So, how does the site work?  If you are wondering about a specific institutions’ sustainability rating, click the “compare” heading at the top of the home page. This will allow you to input the school you’d like to research.  Here, you are also able to receive data as far back as 2007.  The evaluated school displays nine categories: Administration, Climate Change and Energy, Food and recycling, Green Building, Student Involvement, transportation, Endowment Transparency, Investment Priorities, and Shareholder Engagement.   If you’d like to learn what these Sustainability Categories entail, you can find an extensive explanation under the Report Card heading . The founder of Earth Promise, Adam Berg, is a University of New Hampshire Alumni, so we put the Green Report Card to the test.  (Or shall we say, The Green Report card put UNH to the test!)   According to the site, UNH has received an impressive overall grade of an A- two years in a row! The Green Report Card is an easy site to navigate. One of the (many) intriguing sections of the site invites people to apply for internships.  For those contemplating a career in environmental sustainability, Green Report Card offers an exciting avenue to test the waters. Green Report Card has a remarkable list of college and university rankings to research.  Being environmentally conscious is not waning anytime soon.  Add the green factor to your analysis when deciding what university to attend. Tags: activism, campus, Canada, carbon footprint, change, changes, climate change, college, college students, company, earth, earth promise, earthpromise, eco-friendly, energy, environment, environmental, environmental footprint, environmental issues, global, global warming, green, green activism, green campus, green challenge, green changes, green compnay, green future, green internships, green living, green practice, green practices, green report card, green reports, green revolution, green tips, internships, organic, recycle, reduce, reports, reuse, social network, students, sustainable, UNH, university, University of New Hampshire Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Earth Promise “21 in 21″ Interview Series – George Newall – Creator of Schoolhouse Rock! Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 George Newall – Creator of Schoolhouse Rock! and Schoolhouse Rock! Earth In 1970, George Newall became the catalyst in the creation of ABC’s Schoolhouse Rock. The McCaffrey & McCall President, David McCall, asked him to help develop the concept of setting rote learning to rock music. Newall found Bob Dorough, a composer of uniquely eccentric jazz tunes and lyrics and introduced him to McCall and Newall’s creative partner, Art director cartoonist Tom Yohe. Later that year, the group took their educational idea to Disney CEO Michael Eisner, then Director of Children’s Programming at the ABC Television Network. Eisner immediately bought the idea and in 1972, 3-minute Schoolhouse Rock! segments starting running on ABC seven times each weekend. In 2002 The Walt Disney Company released a Schoolhouse Rock! 30th Anniversary Edition DVD featuring the complete library of episodes. Newall composed a new song for the event, I’m Gonna Send Your Vote College, an explanation of the electoral college. Disney filmed the recording session for the new song for inclusion in the “behind the scenes” section the two-disk set. Over one million copies of the DVD were sold over the Christmas holidays. And now in 2009, George Newall and company have released Schoolhouse Rock! Earth. Taking care of the environment rocks! The original creators of the classic ABC TV series SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK have put heart and musical soul into 13 songs that educate and celebrate what makes our planet so great! SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK! EARTH features all-new songs and animation plus appearances by iconic characters Interplanet Janet and Mr. Morton. These fun and high-energy songs will teach a new generation of fans all about recycling, biodiversity, solar energy and more. The beloved voices that sang timeless classics such as “I’m Just a Bill” and “Conjunction Junction” are back to sing again in these all-new tunes! Think green and do your part to rock the Earth! It’s the only Earth we’ve got! To purchase the DVD, here are two places to visit – Amazon and Disney. Earth Promise: What changes, or Earth Promises as we call them, have you made in your lifestyle to be more green?  Changes in home, travel, work, with your kids and community? George Newall: My whole family is more attentive to switches and faucets. We’ve kept our thermostat set lower this winter.  And will keep it higher during the summer months. My wife buys vegetables from a local farm co-op.   I bought a hybrid car. EP: Unrelated to the environment, can you tell me how Schoolhouse Rock! Got started?  I am sure the readers would love to hear. GW: Schoolhouse Rock began as an idea for an educational phonograph record to help teach kids multiplication tables. My boss, Dave McCall, President of McCaffrey & McCall Advertising, had a son who was having trouble memorizing them, even though he could sing every Rolling Stone and Jimi Hendrix lyric. Knowing I had a musical background, he asked me if I could find someone who could set the tables to rock music. I introduced him to Bob Dorough who came back to us three weeks after our first meeting with “Three is a Magic Number.” My partner, Tom Yohe, who was head of our art department, was a wonderful cartoonist and a compulsive doodler. Tom thought the lyrics were very “visual” and, while listening to Bob’s song, started sketching. Our agency’s largest account was ABC Television. And the head Account Executive on ABC, Rad Stone, noticed Tom’s sketches and asked if Tom thought he could set the sketches to Bob’s music and turn “Three is a Magic Number” into a short animated film. Rad knew ABC was looking for a short form answer to CBS’s new “In the News” series. So Tom drew a storyboard and he and Rad and Dave took it to ABC and showed it to the young head of ABC Children’s Programming, Mike Eisner. Also present in the meeting was animation immortal, Chuck Jones, who was producing children’s television material for ABC at the time. After hearing the song and following along with the storyboard, Eisner, obviously intrigued, turned to Jones and said, “What do you think?” Jones replied, “Buy it, as long as Tom draws it!” And that’s how we got what was to become Schoolhouse Rock on network television. EP: I watched Schoolhouse Rock! all the time as a kid and now my two daughters, ages 10 and 6, watch the DVD all the time.  What do you think are the key reasons why Schoolhouse Rock! is timeless in terms of interest from generation to generation. GW: The big reasons why Schoolhouse Rock has been timeless is the quality of the concepts: “Conjunction Junction” and “Unpack Your Adjectives” are unique examples of taking an easy to understand concept and rendering it in a musically and visually memorable way. We drew on several talented sources for music and animation design. Bob Dorough tapped his huge reservoir of jazz musician friends, like Jack Sheldon, known more as one of America’s best jazz trumpeters, who is the singer of “Conjunction Junction,”" I’m Just a Bill,” and “Energy Blues.” Dave Frishberg, who wrote “I’m Just a Bill” has been called America’s greatest living lyricist. Lynn Ahrens, who has gone on to become a leading Broadway composer/lyricist (Once on this Island, Ragtime, Seussical the Musical) was working as a secretary in the agency’s copy department.  Lynn’s Schoolhouse Rock hits include “The Preamble,” “Interjections,” “Telegraph Line” and “The Great American Melting Pot.” The late Blossom Dearie lent her unique voice to “Figure Eight” and “Unpack Your Adjectives.” Besides Tom Yohe’s wonderful styling, we called on artists like Rowland Wilson and Arnold Roth, both of whom were regular contributors to The New Yorker Magazine. Jack Sidebotham, designer of the heralded Bert & Harry Piels advertising campaign (featuring the voices of Bob & Ray) was a frequent contributor. The animation itself was produced by Phil Kimmelman Associates and Kim and Gifford, Inc., two of the leading producers of animation for advertising. Working together, we produced films that are as timely and instructive now as they were in the seventies. Each has its own individual sound and unique design — with no two alike. And perhaps most importantly, we didn’t have a “continuing character” whose personality and back story would limit our creative possibilities. Of course, our grade school target audience renews itself every year! And Schoolhouse Rock has been used by teachers in classrooms since the “get go.” EP: Schoolhouse Rock! was an effective education tool for millions of kids (me being one of them) thirty years ago when TV was an emerging media.  Today, the Internet and video games are the emerging media for the educational message.  How can Schoolhouse Rock! fit into those forms? GW: Today’s new media is an opportunity we’re just beginning to explore. Network television, the “on-air” environment on which we thrived, has changed drastically. ABC has no plans for utilizing us in the immediate future. But there is the possibility of our running on one of the Disney Channels (We were on Toon Disney briefly three years ago). And, the new Schoolhouse Rock! Earth, to be released by Disney Educational Productions does have a significant amount of interactivity built in. As far as video games are concerned, I’d be surprised if Disney would consider creating a video game economically feasible. EP: Last month, you released Schoolhouse Rock! Earth.  When did the team start to think about putting this together?  Who was involved with the decision and who were the driving forces of the songs and animation?  Were those involved the same as the original? GW: Actually, Schoolhouse Rock! Earth grew out of our proposal to make a geography series back in 2001 or 2002. Tom Yohe and I did quite a bit of research including meeting with experts from National Geographic, etc. Tragically, Tom died soon after we made our first proposal. Then, after his death, when Disney decided to produce a “thirtieth anniversary” DVD we produced “I’m Gonna Send Your Vote to College,” to be the featured song. In the meantime, I had revised the geography presentation a couple of times. Finally, I presented an updated version labeled “Earth Science” to John Hanna of ABC business development in June of 2007. During that meeting we agreed that I would put some “green” topics on the song list and present it to ABC/Disney in October. Coincidentally, Lisa Clements had become VP and head of new product development at Disney Education Productions and was already planning to re-release the original series with teachers guides, etc. through Disney Education’s catalogue and website. When we got the green light to do Schoolhouse Rock! Earth for Disney Education, we turned to the same people who had produced the original films in the seventies (in fact, some of us are now in our seventies and eighties!) Phil Kimmelman directed all the animation. Lynn Ahrens, Bob and myself wrote most of the songs, but we also tapped two new composers: Andy Brick, one of today’s most successful composers of symphonic video game music and Sean Altman whose work I had first heard with the acapella singing group Rockapella. EP: Tell me about the inspiration for doing a show dedicated to the environment? GW: You don’t need much more “inspiration” to do a show on the environment than the fact that without serious intervention, the earth as we know it will cease to exist. EP: What are some of the environmental topics you touch on and what are the key messages? GW: The topics are pretty evident from the song titles: Report from the North Pole is a dire weather forecast delivered by a polar bear reporters at the North Pole. The Little Things We Do presents suggestions for all the everyday little things we can all do to conserve energy. Don’t be a Carbon Sasquatch defines carbon footprints and what we can all do to make our smaller. FatCat Blue — the Clean River Song follows a cat and mouse on a raft trip down the Mississippi during which they identify the many sources of river pollution and suggest ways the polluters can stop the environmental damage. You Oughta be Savin’ Water is a doo wop song performed by Dewey Drop and the Drips. Solar Power to the People was written by Lynn Ahrens and features Interplanet Janet of Science Rock fame. Windy and the Windmills is about the potential of wind power and how it fits into the energy grid. Trash Can Band.  A box, a bottle and can sing about reducing, reusing and recycling — with a guest appearance by “Dolly Carton.” In Save the Ocean Schoolhouse Rock meets rap and a more contemporary sound. It’s sung by a walrus, a shark, a turtle and a operatic choir of tropical fish. Tiny Urban Zoo. How a backyard garden can become its own mini environment. The Rain Forest. We use a completely unique animation style to explain the composition and importance of the rain forest. The Energy Blues is a song I wrote during the energy crisis of the seventies. Ironically, at the time I was executive creative director on the Exxon account!  Jack Sheldon has said it’s his favorite of the songs he has sung for Schoolhouse Rock. There is also a music video performed by Mitchel Musso one of the stars of Disney’s Hannah Montana, who sings a “reduce, reuse, recycle” song based on an adaptation by Jack Johnson of the melody of Bob Dorough’s “Three is a Magic Number.” EP: Were you “green” as a child? GW: I was always interested in nature. Particularly the marshes surrounding the fresh water stream that eventually becomes the Metedeconk River on the New Jersey shore. I would spend hours sitting on our neighbor’s dock watching Ospreys fish. Then came DDT. Result: fewer mosquitoes but suddenly, no more Ospreys. EP: What was your first, ah ha! Green moment? GW: I’ve had “ah ha! green moments” for as long as I can remember. EP: What is the one Earth Promise you are going to make in the future that you have not done yet, either personally or professionally? GW: The Earth promise I make is to convince Disney to do a Volume II of Schoolhouse Rock! Earth covering the subjects we didn’t get to do in this first one (geothermal energy, tidal energy, a hydrogen economy, etc.). EP: Final question.  Of all the Schoolhouse Rock! songs, which is your favorite(s)? GW: Favorite Schoolhouse Rock song? The minute I heard Bob first sing, “A man and a woman had a little baby, there were three in the family,” my favorite has been Three is a Magic Number. EP: I want to  thank you for being a part of this series.   It has been an honor. Tags: 21 in 21, carbon footprint, change, changes, children, climate change, conservation, disney, earth, earth day, earth promise, earthpromise, eco-friendly, education, educator, energy, energy efficient, environment, environmental, george newall, global warming, green, green changes, green interviews, green living, green practice, green practices, green roof, green tips, hannah montana, hannah montana movie, mitchel musso, mitchell musso, school house rock, schoolhouse rock, schoolhouse rock earth, students, teacher, Three is a Magic Number, tom yohe Posted in interviews | 1 Comment »

Earth Promise “21 in 21″ Interview Series: Howard Waldman – Green Dean for the Ethical Culture Fieldston School Monday, April 13th, 2009 Howard Waldman – Green Dean for the Ethical Culture Fieldston School Howard Waldman is the Green Dean for the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in Riverdale, New York. He works on sustainability issues at the school, both pertaining to the physical plant and curriculum development. In addition, he oversees work on the Middle School building’s green roof. Earth Promise: What changes, or Earth Promises as we call them, have you made in your lifestyle to be more green?  Changes in home, travel, work, with your kids and community? Howard Waldman: Well when my wife and I decided it was time to buy a house we decided to buy as close as we could to our places of work, so that we don’t have an energy-consuming, excessively carbon-producing commute. We also resisted the impulse to buy a second car, much as logistics with two kids have sometimes forced us to be creative. In the summer, when I go to school, I usually bike. There’s a great path we can take through two parks most of the way to school, and after my daughter can ride a mountain bike, we hope sometimes to bike to school. EP: What was your first, ah ha! Green moment? HW: I think I’ve had a lot of them. The first might have been, when as a little boy, I realized with some horror that the ant I had just fried with a magnifying glass was living being, and that I ought to respect all kinds of life. More recently, just last year, I was interviewed by a student about the “Greening” of our school. After I spoke in depth about the LEED-certified middle school building, she asked me about any other aspects of the school that spoke to sustainability. When I described a gardening program in the Lower School, she asked me what about the garden had to do with sustainability. I paused, almost shaking. I realized that this was a systemic problem in society, the inability of people to make connections between themselves and the living world around them. It is this difficulty that makes it hard for us to understand that where our food comes from, where are electricity comes from, how we get to work, has far-reaching effects. EP: What are some of your eco pet peeves?  HW: I don’t like when people say “We have to save the earth.” The earth has no need of saving, but we do! In addition, I would hate to see some really wonderful species disappear because of human ignorance or apathy. But many species will survive and outlive us. We must understand that we are not the only show on Earth. I also have trouble with people jumping on the green bandwagon but not walking the walk. I include myself in this category, but I am constantly reevaluating my lifestyle and slowly trying to make it more green. EP: I have read about some of the great things being accomplished at the Fieldston School.  Tell me a little about what has been done to date and what is planned for the future? HW: Fieldston recently built a new gymnasium and a new Middle School building. For both of these buildings we took great pains to make them as environmentally sustainable as we could given the costs, the setting, and the requirements. We are very proud that the Middle School building is “Silver” LEED-certified, meaning that it has been independently assessed by the Green Building Council to have incorporated a number of sustainable design concepts. These include stones quarried on site, certified-sustainable wood, state-of-the-art computer controlled heating and cooling systems, big windows that can be opened and that allow the lights to be turned off often, motion-sensitive light switches that automatically turn off the lights when no one is in a classroom, waterless urinals in the boys’ rooms, and a green roof. We are particularly excited about our green roof, which not only prevents thousands of gallons of water from pouring into New York City’s overburdened Combined-Sewage-Overflow (CSO) system, but remains cooler than ambient air in warm weather and warmer in cold weather. It is outfitted with sensing equipment that allows us to measure, air temperatures, humidity, albedo and make comparisons between our green roof and a nearby black roof. Check out the data at http://www.ecfs.org/news.aspx?id=116. In addition, the teaching portion of this roof has allowed 6th grade science students to learn about mapping and plant identification. It’s allowed 9th grade biology students to study plant ecology and competition. We give tours of the roof to teachers and parents from other schools, architects, and horticulturalists. EP: What was the inspiration of going down this green path? HW: The best way to put it is that ECFS sees going green and as ethical imperative. LEED certification was part of the plan from the beginning—and we were guided at ECFS by our first Green Dean, Peter Mott, who tirelessly pushed for every sustainability feature we could incorporate. We are not perfect by any means but as we make modifications we hope to continue to improve our carbon foot print at all parts of the campus. EP: How involved are the students?  What do they do?  HW: We have very active environmental clubs at both the Middle School and High School. They recently worked coordinated our “Lights Out” event, in which every light switch and computer was turned off in all buildings for fifteen minutes so that we could make some baseline measurements of our energy usage, and to raise awareness about all the places that we literally can save energy, carbon and money by flipping a switch. Now they are working on an Earth Day Carnival and related Earth Week events. EP: Have you seen an increase in the involvement over time? HW: Sustainability and Global Warming are hot topics these days (pun intended), and so kids are more interested. We are seeing more kids wanting to help, but we have a long way to go. I want us to get to the point where a student would no more think of tossing a can into the regular garbage than s/he would of jumping off a bridge. Well perhaps that’s a bit extreme but you get the point. EP: Although the greenifying of the school will be financial benefit for the years to come, was it a big monetary impact to start?  Was there any pushback on this from administrators, teachers, parents or others? HW: Though building sustainably definitely costs more short term, we have had unified support from all constituencies at ECFS. This has been gratifying, but every new initiative has to be carefully vetted, especially in these tough economic times. EP: What advice would you give to other schools who are thinking about taking similar steps as Fieldston? HW: Get the community to commit. Go for the low-hanging fruit (turning off lights, closing windows in winter). Find out the real costs of “green building”. They may not be as high as you think. Look into green roofs and solar panels. Look for support at other schools, for example the Green Schools Alliance (GSA) http://www.greenschoolsalliance.org/. Partner with institutions of higher education—we have had enormous help from professors and graduate students at Columbia University for example. EP: Thanks.  Great information.  Tags: 21 in 21, adam berg, carbon footprint, change, changes, children, climate change, conservation, earth, earth day, earth promise, earthpromise, ECFS, eco-friendly, education, educator, energy, energy efficient, environment, environmental, ethical culture, ethical culture fieldston school, fieldston, fieldston school, global warming, green, green buildings, green changes, green interviews, green living, green practice, green practices, green roof, Green Schools Alliance, green tips, GSA, Howard Waldman, LEED, Peter Mott, students, teacher Posted in interviews | No Comments »