Nature Conservancy's "Nature Works Everywhere" grants for school gardens
Asphalt to Ecosystems
http://www.greenschoolyards.org/
Sharon Danks has a nonprofit, Green Schoolyards America? (http://www.greenschoolyards.org/) https://www.facebook.com/GreenSchoolyardsAmerica/
She is based in Berkeley but has studied successful schoolyards around the world and is hooked in with a community of designers and researchers. Through her nonprofit, she helps school districts recognize the benefits of living schoolyards, and to reform their policies so individual schools can more easily become greener.
She told me she had begun talking with a few people at OUSD recently, but I don't remember who.
For advice or expert pruning of your private trees: Ed Jensen, at Elite Tree Service.
http://www.elitetreeinc.com/
Phone 510-523-9399.
Asphalt to Ecosystems
http://www.greenschoolyards.org/
Sharon Danks has a nonprofit, Green Schoolyards America? (http://www.greenschoolyards.org/) https://www.facebook.com/GreenSchoolyardsAmerica/
She is based in Berkeley but has studied successful schoolyards around the world and is hooked in with a community of designers and researchers. Through her nonprofit, she helps school districts recognize the benefits of living schoolyards, and to reform their policies so individual schools can more easily become greener.
She told me she had begun talking with a few people at OUSD recently, but I don't remember who.
For advice or expert pruning of your private trees: Ed Jensen, at Elite Tree Service.
http://www.elitetreeinc.com/
Phone 510-523-9399.
Greening on school grounds is more complicated -- there is a broader palette of trees allowed, locations of the trees need more thought, different people may have competing ideas about whether to plant an area with trees or a sunny garden or keep it as paving, etc.), and additional review is required from staff at OUSD Buildings & Grounds or OUSD Facilities -- but it brings greater benefits to the daily lives of the children (and teachers, staff, and neighbors).
If you don't already know about it, there's a Canadian group called Evergreen, that offers great information for people who want to bring more green to their school. You can find helpful advice and step-by-step guides here:
http://www.evergreen.ca/get-involved/resources/school-ground-greening/ And, as I mentioned, Evergreen is a nonprofit in Canada that works on school greening. They have a lot of great written and graphical resources to help people get organized to green their own schools. This page has the links:
http://www.evergreen.ca/get-involved/resources/school-ground-greening/
You can forward the link and the materials to the principal, teachers, parents -- anyone who wants to help, so the responsibilities aren't all on you.
Also, I highly recommend the book Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation, by local green-schoolyards expert and environmental planner (and parent) Sharon Danks. She runs the nonprofit Green Schoolyards America and is trying to give school districts around the country the information and resources they need to make school greening a priority (and then actually to pay for it).
http://www.newvillagepress.net/book/?GCOI=97660100259630&
http://www.greenschoolyards.org/
Eventually you'll probably need a landscape architect to help clarify your ideas and give real form and space on the ground. I may be able to do this for you (putting on my landscape-architect hat), or I may recommend another local landscape architect from the Northern California Chapter of ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) who would work with you. You might pay for their professional services, or you may ask for them to help you pro bono.
Anyway, sooner or later you'll be ready to plant trees, the Sierra Club Tree Team can help buy them from a nursery, and can bring volunteers to help plant them.
If you don't already know about it, there's a Canadian group called Evergreen, that offers great information for people who want to bring more green to their school. You can find helpful advice and step-by-step guides here:
http://www.evergreen.ca/get-involved/resources/school-ground-greening/ And, as I mentioned, Evergreen is a nonprofit in Canada that works on school greening. They have a lot of great written and graphical resources to help people get organized to green their own schools. This page has the links:
http://www.evergreen.ca/get-involved/resources/school-ground-greening/
You can forward the link and the materials to the principal, teachers, parents -- anyone who wants to help, so the responsibilities aren't all on you.
Also, I highly recommend the book Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation, by local green-schoolyards expert and environmental planner (and parent) Sharon Danks. She runs the nonprofit Green Schoolyards America and is trying to give school districts around the country the information and resources they need to make school greening a priority (and then actually to pay for it).
http://www.newvillagepress.net/book/?GCOI=97660100259630&
http://www.greenschoolyards.org/
Eventually you'll probably need a landscape architect to help clarify your ideas and give real form and space on the ground. I may be able to do this for you (putting on my landscape-architect hat), or I may recommend another local landscape architect from the Northern California Chapter of ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) who would work with you. You might pay for their professional services, or you may ask for them to help you pro bono.
Anyway, sooner or later you'll be ready to plant trees, the Sierra Club Tree Team can help buy them from a nursery, and can bring volunteers to help plant them.
http://www.ebmud.com/water-and-drought/conservation-and-rebates/residential/rebates/lawn-conversion-irrigation-upgrade-rebates/
We get most of our wood chips from the pile outside the City of Berkeley Corporation Yard, on Bancroft Way west of Sacramento St.
Open to the public, bring your own buckets to haul some away.
If you need a lot of wood chips (several cubic yards), I think many arborists / tree-care companies will dump a truckload for free at the address of your choice -- saving them the cost of taking it to a greenwaste station.
Open to the public, bring your own buckets to haul some away.
If you need a lot of wood chips (several cubic yards), I think many arborists / tree-care companies will dump a truckload for free at the address of your choice -- saving them the cost of taking it to a greenwaste station.
