More Important than Ever: Green Schools Celebrated in Pasadena

PASADENA, Calif., Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- About one-quarter of America's population spends a good part of each day inside a school building. The Green California Schools Summit, December 8-10, 2010 at the Pasadena Convention Center, Pasadena, California, will examine what can be done to ensure these structures are healthy and efficient and prepare students for their role in a more sustainable future.

Education represents 27 percent of all construction in the U.S. Despite a lagging economy, hundreds of millions of dollars in green school construction and modernization projects are underway in California alone.

With the theme, "Green Schools - More Important than Ever," the Summit will bring together leaders from all sectors of the green schools movement to share strategies, best practices and results from their green schools programs.  

Every aspect of high performance schools – from financing and building them, to modernizing them for energy efficiency and developing environmental curricula – will be discussed. Special pre-summit workshops on December 8 will offer training on the new CALGreen building codes, school gardens and financing.

On December 9 and 10, concurrent sessions will address the quickly advancing technologies and methods in building, modernizing and running successful green schools. Sessions will focus on new trends in financing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, green curricula, relocatable buildings - even school gardens.

The Summit will also feature an exposition, with over a hundred companies presenting innovative products and services that can help schools and districts attain their green goals.

General sessions will include keynotes by Norma Williamson, Teacher of the Year at the La Mirada Unified School District and a 2009 Leadership Award winner, and architect Eric Corey Freed, principal of organicARCHITECT and author of four books on green building. Wendy Rogers, architect and green schools expert will be a featured speaker.

High performance schools can save districts millions of dollars – money that can be used to hire teachers and buy much needed equipment. They are also ushering in a new generation of environmentally aware young people.

The Summit advisory board is chaired by Bonnie Reiss, California's Secretary of Education. Principal sponsors include Gen7, Firestone Building Products, Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost, LLP and Castle Press.

"I've learned so much. I didn't realize the synergy here, the intelligence, the innovation," said Dr. Glenn Thomas, former Secretary of Education, after attending the 2009 event. "It's fantastic."

For more information, visit www.green-technology.org/gcschools, or call 626-577-5700.

SOURCE Green Technology