Given the right resources, the green economy is poised to deliver change on nearly every industry front. There’s a growing market for clean energy technologies, net zero construction, low-carbon materials and software for modeling climate-smart development, to name a few of the areas where sustainability is taking shape.

“Sustainability” can be defined as a holistic approach to integrating environmental, social and economic benefits into human-generated goods and services. It is an adaptable, malleable concept readily applied to any field. It is a term that more and more industries are adopting in their communications; it signals intentionality around environmental and social stewardship. It is also a sign that the green economy is growing—and that economy needs a larger labor force.

It is incumbent upon educational institutions to equip their students with the kind of knowledge and skills needed to push sustainability not only forward, but in all directions, to reach every socioeconomic sector. Developing methods for teaching lessons—across all academic subjects—around sustainability that will impart both theoretical information and practical skills is the challenge.

Some high school educators have found solutions in USGBC’s LEED Green Associate Exam Prep-Take-Teach for Teachers, an online course begun in 2022. Its objective is to prepare educators to sit for the exam and teach them green building principles that they can then incorporate into their classes. This course is taught by LEED Faculty member Heather McCombs and is sponsored by American Technical Publishers.

Finding a framework

Karen Carney, an instructor of environmental science and sustainable and renewable technologies at Battlefield High School in Haymarket, Virginia, found the prep course helpful. Her school is in an affluent suburb half an hour west of Washington, D.C. It has 2,500 students and is the only school in the county to offer a sustainability course.

Karen Carney holds up an inspirational sign — Karen Carney teaches environmental science and sustainable and renewable technologies at Battlefield High School. Photo courtesy of Karen Carney.

“It is a challenge to sift through and incorporate all the information that’s out there for how to teach sustainability,” Carney says. “About 80% of it is geared toward elementary and middle school–age students. I got great ideas from EcoRise and USGBC, but it wasn’t until I took the LEED Green Associate course for teachers that I finally had a sense of how I can package content to make it accessible for students, using our building as the primary teaching tool.”

Equipped with information gleaned from her six weeks in the course, she has integrated sustainability-focused lessons and activities into her plans. “USGBC gave me the scaffold upon which to build all the pieces,” she says. The waste management coursework, for example, now includes a student-facilitated waste audit. This year, her class invited the school superintendent to witness their work sifting through and characterizing the waste produced in their building; they had to communicate their findings and articulate the implications (critical so-called "soft skills").

“They were so eloquent when they spoke with her,” Carney recalls. “Seeing the students teaching the superintendent—that’s a full-circle moment in education. I think it solidified her support for the curriculum.”

Carney remarks on the importance of hierarchal support for incorporating sustainability curricula—from the school district on down to the principal. Without it—and active engagement on the part of educators—advancing such curricula is slow. Carney feels fortunate. “There’s an energy management office that offered the LEED Green Associate exam; they paid for me to take it. There is an entire branch of facilities dedicated to sustainability, and part of their mission is outreach to teachers.”

Carney introduced her students to the LEED Green Associate opportunity, and six of them have registered to take the course and exam. This means they will graduate high school with a LEED credential, which gives them an edge. Two have plans to major in sustainability at college. “Listening to them present their work really gives me hope for the future,” Carney says. “It’s action-oriented, problem-solving work they are doing.”

Students in an outdoor classroom — Left: Students at Battlefield High in an outdoor classroom. Right: Students take part in an electric bus tour. Photo courtesy of Karen Carney.

Students in reflective vests stand by a bus — Left: Students at Battlefield High in an outdoor classroom. Right: Students take part in an electric bus tour. Photo courtesy of Karen Carney.

Broadening the scope

Lynne Scott wears a few hats at Principia Upper School in St. Louis, Missouri, including that of sustainability coordinator. The small independent school of roughly 400 K–12 students comprises a close-knit community: 50% of the high schoolers are boarding students; 18% are international students.

Like Carney, Scott looked in many places for sustainability curriculum ideas. It was the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that resonated with her. “What I love about those goals is that the access points are wide-reaching…it’s acknowledging that when we talk about sustainability, yes, that includes cities and buildings and energy, but it’s also about access to food, social equity and climate change. Sustainability is so varied, and the U.N. goals do such a good job of identifying those different access points…whatever your interests are, there is a role for you to play.”

Students and teachers sell greens at a table — Students sell produce from Principia Upper School's harvest on campus. Photo courtesy of Lynne Scott.

Three years ago, Scott started the Impact Challenge: Student Action for Sustainability program, which requires students to identify one of the 17 SDGs and develop plans for working toward that goal. For example, some high school students interested in food access organized field trips to local farms, studied what food access looks like in St. Louis, and identified the organizations and individuals working to effect change—what they are doing specifically, and how the students might help further that work. Subsequently, they started hosting service days.

Middle school students tasked themselves with ensuring that different religious perspectives were understood when working on a project centered around creating peace (modeled on Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). Another group was interested in international relations; their Impact Challenge project was to better understand the refugee situation in St. Louis and determine how they can support people in need. They set up service days with the International Institute of St. Louis, the city’s immigrant service and information center, and interviewed people working in the organization to hear about refugees’ challenges and to find out how to be better neighbors.

Students sell painted bowls of their own for charity funds — Left: Art and ceramics created by Principia Upper School students and community members support the effort to fight hunger in the St. Louis region. Right: Young students learn about nature. Photos courtesy of Lynne Scott.

Small children in the woods with a sign about a water bug — Left: Art and ceramics created by Principia Upper School students and community members support the effort to fight hunger in the St. Louis region. Right: Young students learn about nature. Photos courtesy of Lynne Scott.

Early childhood education focuses on the No Poverty goal; the kids take part in fund drives. “It’s part of a larger concept tied to the U.N. goals,” Scott explains, “so they see those connections as they move through their education at Principia.”

The intention is to nurture in young people wide-ranging perspectives that stem from areas of personal interest. “The breadth of the SDGs allows for students’ own interests to shine through, so they can see themselves as change agents,” Scott says. “And, as the sustainability coordinator, that is my goal.”

Scott is working to get more schools, both regionally and nationally, to participate in the Impact Challenge. One way she does this is by inviting industry experts from the community to give feedback to the students on their projects. Seeing the young people at work is a powerful motivator to support the program.

“I’m looking to expand it, because I want our youth of today to see this interconnectedness and to see themselves as change agents,” she reiterates, concurring that actionability is integral to teaching sustainability. Solutions must be presented alongside problems.

Meeting students where they are

Michael Buonocore in the woods — Michael Buonocore, teacher of sustainable architecture at Platt Technical High School. Photo courtesy of Michael Buonocore.

Michael Buonocore is an instructor of sustainable architecture at Platt Technical High School in Milford, Connecticut, a coastal city in New Haven County. He serves a socially and economically diverse demographic and says his primary challenge is getting students to engage. Turning high-level information into grade-appropriate content is another challenge.

“The need for recycling and solar power is pretty much the extent of their knowledge around sustainability,” he says. “The challenge is to expand those concepts to help students see, for example, the connection between recycling and waste-stream management, and the tie to individual action.”

Experiential learning is one way to increase student engagement; and it is a key component of effective sustainability curricula. In his role at a technical school, Buonocore is uniquely positioned to integrate the different trades—architecture, carpentry, HVAC, plumbing—to physically demonstrate and teach the interconnectivity of a building’s systems and performance levels and how they tie to broader sustainability goals. When the carpentry students build a mock wall, the plumbing students are there to devise a plan for running water lines, and architecture students draw what’s being built.

Buonocore alternates between theory-based and hands-on lessons. He works with Earth Forward Group to introduce students to building science principles; he gets creative with Google Earth to show a timeline of local land development for a Sustainable SITES lesson; he has students design and build a model of a sustainable city for lessons around residential and commercial buildings, site planning, road design, green spaces, the pedestrian experience and the overall concept of connectivity.

He also makes use of USGBC’s free education materials, such as the energy-use analysis worksheet, which can be used in conjunction with an exercise whereby students tour their building to collect and analyze energy consumption data.

Three high school students work in a wood shop — Students at Platt Technical High School learn trades as well as academic subjects. Photo courtesy of Platt Technical High School.

Although the school’s sustainable architecture program has strengthened in the past few years, Buonocore sees room for improvement. “We could be doing more in terms of teaching sustainability, which is why I took the LEED Green Associate course,” he says, noting that the course broadened his perspective and provided a framework. “I was excited when I finished the course, because I have all kinds of great material to work with. I was able to take the different categories from the LEED credential [coursework] and break it down into smaller concepts, such as the importance of reusing already developed sites.”

Asked what he wishes to impart to his students, Buonocore replies: “As architects and designers, we must do our part. Buildings contribute [highly to] greenhouse gas emissions. My goal is to get them to see that how and what we build will have a major impact on future generations.”

A note of hope

The goal across all industries should be to fuel an economy that results in human health, well-being and social equity, while reducing environmental risks and ecological deficits. To accomplish this vision, we need change agents to navigate the varied scenarios that come with its implementation. USGBC is there for the forward-thinking teachers stewarding the education of future leaders.

Teaching today’s change agents