Waste

Green Up Our Schools

Get funding and personalized sustainability consulting support to help your school reduce waste.

Consumption Literacy Project Educators Resources and Parent and Community Workshops

Join a community of teachers and learn about different ways to teach about food systems, sustainability, waste reduction, and justice.

We Don’t Waste

Learn more about food waste audits and engage your students in a hands-on learning experience on food waste reduction, nutrition, hunger, and more. Hosts educational field trips and volunteer opportunities!

Denver Waste DPS Partnership

Work with the City to teach your students about waste reduction and learn more about the partnership between DPS and Denver to increase recycling and composting.

Recycling – Composting

Biodiversity and Gardens

Denver Botanic Gardens – Schools and Teachers and Children and Family Programs

Take a field trip to the Botanic Garden and help your kids grow their science skills, plant knowledge, and appreciation for the natural world.

National Wildlife Federation Educational Resources

Bring the natural world to your kids with NWF lesson plans, activities, and other resources on wildlife, wild places, and conservation.

SustainEd Farms

Develop curriculum on sustainable farming practices, nutrition, and food justice and get your kids in the garden with SustainEd Farms.

Kiva Center

Help your kids build connections with each other and nature through hands-on workshops and programs on environmental stewardship.

Partners in Urban Agriculture

The Urban Farm 

Take a field trip to inspire students to engage with local food systems through a hands-on urban agriculture experience.

Denver Urban Gardens 

Find interactive garden-related curriculum and other educational ideas.

Sprout City Farms

One of our garden partners who’ve helped us build our school gardens!

Slow Food Denver 

Find educational workshops and programming on urban agriculture, nutrition, food justice, and more for students.

Big Green 

Big Green provides a number of gardening curriculum, activities, videos, and lesson plan resources as well as support for developing a garden team at your school.

DPS Garden and Agriculture Materials

DPS Garden Manual

Learn more about how DPS maintains its gardens.

DPS Garden to Cafeteria

Learn more about how DPS uses its harvested produce!

DPS Urban Farms

Learn more about DPS’s urban agriculture efforts.

DPS Honey Bee Protocol

Bees are a very important part of our ecosystem! They pollinate plants which makes sure our flowers bloom and our fruits and vegetables grow. This protocol explains how DPS keeps bees.

DPS Goat Protocol

Livestock provide our society with meat, milk, fiber for cloth and other uses, and more. Goats also help us by eating food scraps! This protocol explains how DPS keeps goats.

• Dwarf goats arrive in DPS – Press Release

DPS Chicken Protocol

Chickens are an important source of eggs and meat! This protocol explains how DPS keeps chickens.

Nutrition Guides

DPS Food and Nutrition Services website | DPS Health and Wellness Policy 

Visit our friends at Food and Nutrition Services to see what sustainability initiatives they’re undertaking and what’s new with their gardening efforts!

Denver Healthy Food for Denver’s Kids

In 2018, residents of the City of Denver voted to increase taxes to fund a healthy food and food-based education at DPS. Learn more about the City-wide initiative! 

State of Colorado Department of Education Nutrition Resources Hub

DPS’s school meals are required to follow regulations set by our partners at the State Department of Education, who in turn support us in many ways, including with this great list of nutrition and food-related resources.

CDPHE Nutrition Programs

The State of Colorado Department of Public Health and Education provides great resources and programs to help families access proper nutrition and healthy food.

USDA Child Nutrition Programs Hub

DPS is also required to follow federal-level regulations on school meals and nutrition. The US Department of Agriculture also supports families with children through a variety of nutrition and healthy foods programs.

 

General Sustainability

Green Education Foundation

Develop interactive curriculum and programs on sustainability and green building as well as free programming to get your students excited! (National online resource)

Earth Force

Use Earth Force’s Environmental Action Civics framework to engage your students in interactive, project-based learning.

EPA Environmental Resource Portal

Find quality homework resources, lesson plans, and interactive project ideas for learning and teaching about the environment.

Love My Air

Participate in Denver’s Love My Air program to get lesson plans, presentations, and actionable data on local air quality.

Equity at DPS

DPS Equity and Engagement Page | DPS Equity Statement

Learn more about how DPS is approaching equity and environmental and climate justice.

Board Passes Student-led Climate Policy – Press Release

Students Push for Climate Policy – Press Release

Denver Equity Index (2020) 

Learn more about what the City of Denver is doing to address and monitor equity issues within the City.

Denver Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency Office Equity Hub

The City of Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability, and Resiliency focuses a lot on equity too! Learn more about initiatives going on in the City.

 

Climate Change

Climate.gov Teaching Resources

Find a myriad of teaching resources on any climate-related topic you could possibly think of!

Our Climate Our Future

A video series developed by Action for the Climate Emergency, geared towards educating students on the science of climate change and inspiring and empowering them to take action.

Climate Action Academy

Join CAA and learn how to engage with climate action as an educator and inspire your students to act.

Energy

OpenEnergi

Explore energy and STEM education in highly interactive ways through play, movement, art, creation, and using energy as a playground.

USGBC Learning Pathway

An online education hub for teachers to access hands-on curriculum and resources to encourage student leadership, sustainability literacy, and real-world action.

DPS Building and Design Standards/Guidelines

Curious about how DPS buildings are designed? These standards explain how buildings are designed and built, including how energy efficient they have to be and what materials to use.

Denver Building Code

The City of Denver also has a building code, or set of standards for the design and construction of buildings! DPS is not required to use Denver’s code, but we may reference it for guidance.

Xcel’s Carbon Reduction Plan

Find out more about Xcel’s climate pledges and GHG emissions reduction roadmap.

 

PowerED Student Engagement – Action Hub

As part of the State of Colorado’s largest-ever Energy Performance Contract right here at DPS, students are encouraged to be a leader in our efforts to save energy at our schools! Find out about power-saving strategies and more, including how to participate in the Action Hub linked above. Learn more about the program in this Press Release.

 

Water

Denver Water Youth Education Programs

Find resources on how to teach students about water in Colorado, Denver’s water systems, and water conservation, including a comprehensive water education resource guide.

Learn more about DPS’s Recycled Water Use with Denver Water – Press Release on Purple Pipes Installation

Educators, take a look at our resource library for tools and materials for hands-on sustainability and climate change education. Reach out to dept_sustainability@dpsk12.net to request any library item or to schedule a virtual or in person class speaker or demonstration.

Class set of Energy Audit Kits

Garden Workday Tool Trailer

Seeds Starting Kits and Lights for school with 65%+ FRL

Recycling Refresher

Cafeteria Composting

Garden Composting

Seedling Starting (Spring Semester)

Seed Harvesting (Fall Semester)

Garden to Cafeteria Program

School Energy Audits

Water Audits

Waste Audits