How to Make Green Your School Color

If your school budget allows, make bigger changes. When possible, rely on daylight to light classrooms -- studies by the Heschong Mahone Group, an energy-efficiency consulting firm, have shown that students with more daylight perform better than those with less. When daylight isn't enough (or isn't available), use efficient lighting such as T-8 fluorescent lamps, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) or LED lights.

And then get an energy audit. A professional energy auditor will determine how energy-efficient your building is and provide suggested areas of improvement. You may want to make small changes like beefing up the insulation and adding weather stripping to seal leaky windows. You could also go whole hog and upgrade to a more efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.

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