Green building companies and their employees have immense opportunities to support the K–12 schools, teachers and students that produce future workers. By engaging students who want jobs that support a more sustainable future, companies can actively shape a local emerging workforce that is prepared for green building job openings.

Invest in future green building professionals

Creating work-based learning opportunities in your company and providing career mentoring are excellent strategies for supporting students who are pursuing a green building career path. Another way your company can support local schools while inspiring career connections is to donate your time, expertise or resources directly to classes.

For over a decade, Creekside High School career academy teacher Ali Pressel has been partnering with professionals from her local community. The teacher in St. Augustine, Florida, notes the impact it has on her own professional growth, as well as her students’ growth in her environmental science classes. “I feel like I would be lost without my partners in the classroom,” she says.

Pressel’s students have had the opportunity to learn from their “geomentor,” who flies drones around their school to demonstrate how geographic information system images can help analyze situations with the school building and grounds. A different group of industry partners participates in the school’s Project Green program, advising on technical and communication aspects of student projects. Yet another business partner helps students create portfolios to express themselves during career explorations.

In Salem Keizer Public Schools in Salem, Oregon, career technical education (CTE) director Jim Orth agrees that engagement by a business partner brings next-level learning for students. He recommends that partners bring to the classroom an activity they do on a normal basis in their job, something that students can engage directly with and that orients them to tasks involved in an occupation that could become theirs in the future. “The time industry donates to the classroom is more valuable than donations,” says Orth. “For companies, it’s onboarding. They can train the students the way they want them to be in the field.”