Green Jobs training in Adult Education

Going green seems to be the wave of the future. Just take a look at the many suggestions on how to go green on Discovery's PlanetGreen or Treehugger.com, where they offer a wide array of suggestions for being green from when you buy toys, to how you select beer, and how you buy a home. Green and Save has also published a guide to help you make being green a family affair. Being green is not just good for the environment, it is also good for home energy savings and hopefully for our national economy. Incorporating environmental sciences into your adult education class may help your students work green as well as live green.

We are learning more about how to live green from the media and a basic mantra of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, but what are green jobs and green work skills?? According to the WE Can Solve It site,

Green jobs provide healthy environments for workers while helping build a clean economy. These are good jobs involving work that is often familiar. Plumbers, welders, carpenters and others continue to use their skills, but in fields like renewable energy, sustainable agriculture or green building.

Some adult education programs already offer a curriculum designed to teach basic "soft" job skills. In PA, programs refer to the Workforce Education Research Center's Foundation Skills Framework Resources of basic workplace skills, workplace knowledge, basic enjoyability skills, and lifelong learning skills. Some programs also offer educational services tailored for specific work environments for incumbent workers as part of the PA Workforce Improvement Network program. As unemployment rises with the need for specialized job skills, it is likely many adult education programs will offer opportunities to gain more job-specific skills.

Green jobs are somewhat difficult to define, but they can be found within several of the PA's Workforce Improvement plan's nine clusters including Building and Construction, Advanced Materials and Diversified Manufacturing, Agriculture and Food Production, Logistics and Transportation, Lumber Wood and Paper, and Information and Communication Services and possibly Life Sciences as well as Education. According to the Center for American Progress, investment in green industries have the potential to create a large pool of jobs in 34 states:

The U.S. can create two million jobs and reduce the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent over two years by investing in the green economy

Adult education programs may also be able to find ways to receive funds through the H.R.6759 Renew Through Green Jobs Act of 2008. Alternatively, adult education programs may look to partner with new clean energy power companies, such as ethanol plants, or traditional labor companies who want workers with a specific set of 'green' skills at the entry level in order to develop credential programs or supplement work skills lessons.

If you are a teacher looking to introduce information related to green jobs, you may want to start with the list of green jobs on the Green Collar page at UrbanHabitat.org. This site also has an interesting article addressing the green job of cleaning brown fields.

The Blue Green Alliance web site may be a great place to begin looking at ways to introduce green jobs to students who are already interested in joining labor unions. The Blue Green Alliance also holds leadership seminars in various states, so workers have chance to share their experiences and learn from others. The green-friendly discovery company Treehugger posted an article in July 2008 stating that training for solar panels by Solar Enery International, are on the rise.

I have found additional websites advertising training programs for green jobs, such as the Eco-Academy in Philadelphia, which trains people to be home efficiency experts. People can also get training through the Solar Living Institute in California and at the Wind School in Oklahoma. I am sure there are many more out there. If your students are more interested in activism, they can also explore the Green Corps field school for environmental organizing.
It would be worthwhile class time to ask students to search for training opportunities, and then help your students verify the authority of credentials and the quality of any program before they apply.

Not surprisingly, websites are developing to help match workers with employers offering green jobs, such as SustainableBusiness.com, TreeHugger, and the Environmental job Directory, which links to other sites with postings.

You may also want to try the advocacy sites WE Can Solve It site as well as 1Sky for information on being environmentally responsible as well as on green jobs and the green jobs bill. If you use these sites, be ready to hold discussion that will give students an opportunity to debate issues.

Note: This entry is follow up to a previous entry on green jobs in adult education classes. I have expanded on why I think including green job skills will help students as well as a few more resources to supplement curricula. Be sure to check earlier entries.