GreenMap.org expands educational offering for middle and high school teachers and students.

There’s no question that the Internet is the best thing to happen to education since chalk. It is a tool, a medium, a resource, and a teacher unto itself. It helps students to better connect with and learn from the world outside. With sites like GreenMap.org, it’s a way to explore and engage with their local communities, both online and off.

The GreenMap organization, which has been in business since 1995, provides a unique set of online map-making tools that enables one to map out the local green landscape, including parks, businesses, bike lanes, landmarks, and other green-themed points of interest. The organization recently announced a socially driven counterpart to its main product with OpenGreenMap.org. The public launch date has yet to be announced. In the meantime, GreenMap has made a new set of educator tools available just in time for the new school year.

From GreenMap:

While school has been on break, we gathered up the responses from the educators and youth group leaders who tested our set of Energy and Environment Exploration Modules over the past year. We then refined and finalized these adaptable tools and the educator guide that goes with them for both in and out-of-school activities. Both New York City and Global editions are now available. We invite you to use them with middle and high school students in your community.

Thanks to our supporters who believe in the importance of mobilizing the next generation as much as we do, you can use these modules to map street trees and green space, get around car-free, find waste reduction sites and save energy at school. Download the Global version of these modules at GreenMap.org/youth. Find these and two additional modules designed specifically for charting NYC’s environment at GreenAppleMap.org/page/modules. Your teens will get a taste of Green Mapmaking and discover great ways to get involved in local greening efforts.

Educators are invited to download our new Energy & Environment Education Modules. Designed for middle and high school students, these modules include Green Mapmaking and related sustainability resources for charting energy in the school, mapping street trees and green spaces, car-free mobility and waste reduction. Download them free for the 2008-2009 school year, thanks to New York City Environmental Fund, Body Shop Foundation and Seventh Generation Foundation. Tested for a year in NYC, we hope they will give you a great introduction to our engaging approach!

Children and young adults are important participants in Green Map System, and their Green Maps are powerfully expressive documents of their explorations, discoveries and hopes for their own communities. Whether made with a class, out of school club, summer camp or on their own, youth often chart smaller areas, such as their own neighborhood, school campus or favorite park. They may make a printed, digital, poster or mural ‘theme Green Map’ that’s tied to learning objectives or a campaign regarding a critical environmental issue. Green Maps and the process of making them gives youth a better understanding of current conditions and community resources and a voice in their own future, helping them communicate with their peers, older people and decision-makers.