For Teachers
START can be used as a springboard for integrating sustainability learning in
the classroom and engage students in solutions and innovative thinking.
Students as creative problem-solvers
Use START as a spring-board for a student-created action plan for school or community sustainability.
Students can learn skills in research, analyzing feasibility, planning and presenting their ideas, while helping their schools discover what is possible.
START has been designed to be accessible for the whole school community - including students.
Challenge middle- and high-school students to collect information for sustainability benchmarking, analyze the data, present their findings, and formulate solutions.
Direct Engagement
The START Action Plan Toolkit website guides students in researching and formulating a proposal to help their school implement sustainable solutions.
Project-Based Learning
Case Study
To exemplify a pedagogical use of START, students in the Grade 11 Environmental Science class at Nightingale-Bamford, an independent school in New York City, used the START framework to create a Sustainability Plan to measure sustainability at the school.
They gathered data by interviewing faculty and staff and by reviewing Nightingale’s own facilities documents and determined a baseline measurement of the school’s current sustainability efforts.
START enabled the class to prioritize and recommend short and long-term strategies according to their cost, difficulty, and impact. When the proposed strategies are fully adopted, the school would improve occupant health and wellness, learning environment, comfort, and inclusivity, while reducing its environmental footprint and operational costs.
