Green Space for Everyone

Blog #12

• Do the schools in your area have an environmental health team or some equivalent? Are the school or community health nurses involved?
• Since I am not a Pediatric Nurse or work with Pediatrics; I chose to focus on our local college. I am a clinical instructor at MPC for 2nd semester nursing students. The college is older and thought it would be perfect to speak about in this Blog.
• Monterey has the Unified School District that has Health Services and Wellness pages.  This page mainly focuses on health related topics such as signs and symptoms to watch for and rationale for keeping your children at home.  The guidelines make it easy to follow and assess if your child should stay home; I think this tool is very helpful and may even ease the burden on medical professionals with unnecessary ER visits.
• How would you assess indoor air quality in your local schools?
• I currently teach second semester nursing students at our local college. So I though this would be the perfect place to assess the ventilation and air quality. The college was first established in 1947 and the School of Nursing was established in 1982. Based on these years, I'm wouldn't be surprised to see in small corners of the older buildings: chipping pain, pealing dry wall, and insulations flaking. With Monterey being a sea-side community I would expect to find areas of mold and again in the older buildings, if ventilation hasn't been upgraded or cleaned in some time, these spores will be airborne.  
• In order to assess indoor quality at MPC, I would begin by taking survey of the oldest buildings on campus. From there I would take an air quality detector around and test areas of concern. With these results I would be able to present to officials the need for change, for the safety of the college.
• I utilized the EPA resource from this module to research further.  Regular maintenance and regular inspections of our HVAC; its actually easy to see how proper monitoring could fall behind, especially in older buildings without frequent students or programs.  I also was fascinated to learn about "Healthy Buildings," these buildings focus on the communities environmental, economic and social goals. They are designed to have lower operating and maintenance costs which leads to reduced energy bills and can contribute to health, productive school environments.
• It was a little challenging to find information on Healthy Building, but Green Homes are sought after! I love infographics and found a good one!
• I would hope that building have the same benefits. 
• From a community health standpoint, how can you advocate for air quality standards in local schools?
• I would hope to appeal to state, county and education boards. I feel the largest struggle would be budget. Unfortunately money rules our world and I feel would be an uphill battle, especially in neighborhoods that need it the most. Appealing to the standards of safety, water, air, etc; I hope I could be successful in implementing new laws or standards for neighborhoods in danger. To be realistic, as a community health nurse, I think I would be able to hand out air quality detectors, information on how to revamp rooms in the home. Some would not have the ability to clean a home or the money to put into a home; but as much I could support then I would!

In the News:

     This idea of green homes just fascinates me and something that I look forward to implementing in my new home. In thinking of adding "Green" to my new home, the costs are almost unreal, why is something that is so beneficial have to cost an arm and a leg. In the article I chose, they mention the burden of upfront costs and how initially it will be more expensive especially if you are going to include solar, energy panels and insulation. But will pay for themselves in the long run. The article also gave information about incentives for homeowners to go green, which i hadn't heard of; but sounds amazing especially before selling. 

     The article also gave suggestions for improvements in the home, including, if your dream is to have hardwood floors, to consider reclaimed wood (which is desirable); it take 11 to 13 less energy to produce and use no new trees! You can also purchase glaze for your windows to keep warm air trapped in your home. You can also purchase glaze with UV protection and is less expensive than other glazes. . .  win win!

    As a new home owner, we will try to make some changes to be environmentally friendly and the one I am most excited about is green space in our yard and water collection! I have always wanted a large wine barrel to collect rain water to re-use!