ArtEd Online
Creating a Green Artroom
Recently, I came across the Green Artroom on the Web and decided right then that I had to invite
the author, Zach Stoller, to write this guest column about his site. I’m pleased he agreed to do so.
—Craig Roland
It is extremely important o teach students that being green is critical to the health of our planet.
Students must learn that being
wasteful is simply not an option
anymore. Teaching green lessons to young children is the
best way to help future generations live in an environmentally
responsible manner. I decided
that the process of maintaining an environmentally
friendly artroom should be the
topic of my master’s thesis.
Zach Stoller
eventually have the site serve
as a meeting place for all art
teachers who care about making their classrooms more
environmentally friendly.
The “Classroom Practices”
section of the site describes
many easy, day-to-day changes
that will encourage your students to become more environmentally friendly. I focus on
ideas that are easily applicable
to almost any classroom situation. Prior to incorporating
many of the changes that are
described on the site, I was sad
to see rampant waste of paper
and the lack of student knowledge about why it is important to be green. Through the
changes that I have made,
I have not only been able
to drastically decrease the
amount of waste that comes
from my room, but students
are now beginning to understand why it is important to be
environmentally conscious in
all aspects of their lives.
The rest of the site includes
information about everything
ranging from details of my
research, to green artists, to
specific brands of art supplies
that are considered to be green. Being
green in the artroom is more than
just having a recycling bin—it should
encompass multiple aspects of envi-
ronmentalism that allow students to
be green in and out of the artroom.
The Green Artroom
www.greenartroom.com
While my thesis research was
incredibly helpful, I decided
that a thesis document sitting
in a dusty university library
was not going to do anybody
any good. Therefore, part of
my thesis consisted of creating
a website that I call the Green
Artroom, which provides easily accessible information
on environmentally friendly
materials and practices to art
educators. It is full of a multitude of suggestions for small
changes that can be made,
often inexpensively, within
any artroom to make it environmentally friendly. The site is broken into
several sections including Discussion,
Classroom Practices, Research, Artists, Resources, and Links.
I am most excited about the “Dis-
cussion” part of my site. Even though
I have researched the topic of being
green in the artroom, I certainly am
not the only knowledgeable person on
the subject. My classroom practices
are the culmination of my educa-
tion, research, and, most importantly,
input from other art educators. I want
to provide a place for art teachers to
actively exchange ideas, lessons, and
tips about being green in the class-
room. To facilitate this dialogue, I set
up the Green Art Classroom Network
on ning.com (
greenartroom.ning.
com). There, art educators can post
information, questions, images, and
videos about what they are doing to
be green in their schools. I hope to
Zach Stoller is an elementary art teacher
at Griffith Thomas Elementary School in
Dublin, Ohio. He has a BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design and a Master
of the Arts in art education from Ohio
State University.
