Environment Friendly Classrooms

I have always found it helpful to include in my syllabus various references, web sites, and other information which may help students. Recently, I've become aware that the amount of space these resources took in the syllabus expanded to averaging adding 3-4 pages onto each syllabus.

As I've become much more aware of how much waste occurs in the classrooms and universities over the past few years, I have also become increasingly concerned with the environment. This has led me to making a personal commitment to coming up with ways to be more environment friendly in the classroom. In the 2003-2004 school year I used over 600 pages for reference information in syllabi. I realized a great deal of paper could be saved through my learning to develop internet websites for my classes and moving much of this information to the web.

Building an Environment Friendly Class

I am just beginning to think about ways to create an environment friendly classroom and am sure there are many people who have spent much more time thinking about this than I have. I would hope that others would send me feedback on more ways to conserve in the classroom or links to more information on being environment friendly (lhoffman@vanguard.edu). In the meantime I thought I would add my beginner's level suggestions here:

1. Create a website and place as much of your syllabus as possible (or all of it!) on the website.

2. Have papers turned in electronically on disks or via Email. Microsoft Word has an excellent editor program which allows you to make corrections & comments on paper. You can then return your papers electronically, too.