Money for college?

Incentives for public and private colleges to reduce their energy use are provided by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority's "Focus on Colleges and Universities" program.

NYSERDA has funding available for energy efficiency improvements on campuses for new construction, renovations and equipment upgrades. For more information, e-mail Focus on C&U at highered@nyserda.org.

The greening of CUNY

The Professional Staff Congress, the NYSUT affiliate representing City University of New York faculty and staff, is going green. The union has created a new green committee and held its first-ever workshop on green building.

The workshop focused on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards since CUNY is seeking LEED silver certification for new buildings on 11 CUNY campuses, the union reports.

It was conducted by Dave Newman of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health and sponsored by PSC's new Green Team sustainability group and the Environmental Health and Safety Watchdogs.

For more information about working with the PSC on these environmental and health and safety endeavors, e-mail hswatchdogs@pscmail.org.

Studying climate change

Teacher's guides, activity sheets and other resources are available through the World Wildlife Federation at www.worldwildlife.org.

At the high school level, the federation has developed a 15-lesson guide incorporating climate change in the classroom.

For classes studying marine animals and oceans, a guide and activity sheets are available with fact-filled interactive lessons so K-2 students can work together to create a classroom conservation plan. Lessons for grades 3-6 are available on the Mesoamerican Reef.

Cars and carbon

The University at Albany has received a $97,290 grant to identify commuter vehicle patterns of students, faculty and staff and research alternative modes of transportation.

UAlbany issues 15,000 parking permits annually, 85 percent of them to solo drivers. The adjacent State Office Campus houses 7,300 workers, most of whom are also solo commuters.

The grant is from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the state Department of Transportation.