IAQ Tools for Schools
Key words from each participate of the SHIELDS Summit is represented in the word cloud above. The collective vision of the Summit is to create healthy indoor environments in schools that protect student and staff health, increase productivity and reduce absenteeism. (Click on the image for a larger version)
The School Health and Indoor Environments Leadership Development Summit (SHIELDS) was a gathering of over 80 green and healthy school leaders whose mission is to advance the future of the healthy indoor environments in schools movement. SHIELDS is an extension of our efforts to mobilize school-based environmental and health stakeholders to take sustainable actions toward increasing the number and quality of IAQ management programs in the nation's schools. Read more about who attended this event and the commitments they made.
For more information on these events, visit the SHIELDS Calendar of Events.
At the Summit, participants collaborated to design nine pacing events. Pacing events bring together individuals and networks of various streams of work and interests to achieve a common goal. The events will advance the SHIELDS vision and take place throughout the country. To see where you can become involved in other national events and training opportunities, visit the IAQ Tools for Schools Calendar of Events.
How can you get involved in the School Health and Indoor Environments Leadership Development initiative?
Take Action and Help Advance Healthy Indoor Environments in Schools
1. Show Your Commitment
Declaration of Commitment
To add your name to the list of people who have signed the Declaration, send an email to IAQschools@epa.gov and share what actions you are taking to achieve the vision of healthy indoor environments in schools.
- Sign the Declaration of Commitment to show your commitment to the SHIELDS vision of green and healthy indoor environments in schools. To achieve this vision, you are declaring that you will share your knowledge of best practices with others in the healthy schools movement. The Declaration also states that you are committing to collaborate to develop and deploy action learning activities that strengthen our community and advance our vision by convening, hosting or sponsoring stakeholder events.
- Download the SHIELDS logo and add it into your email signature.
2. Make Your Stakeholder Events More Impactful
- View the materials from the Summit, including the SHIELDS Meeting Agenda PDF (1 page, 274 K, about PDF) and Event Slides PDF (16 pp, 1.4 M), to learn more about pacing events, leadership development, and other sessions that took place throughout the day and the knowledge that was shared.
- Use the Pacing Events Primer (PDF) (2 pp, 1.2 M) to enhance the effectiveness of your current activities that promote healthy indoor environments in schools.
3. Support a Pacing Event
- Help create, manage and sustain healthy school indoor environments by attending or offering your support to one of the nine pacing events created at SHIELDS,
as well as other pacing events being sponsored by SHIELDS attendees —
check out the list of events to locate one near you.
- Review the IAQ Tools for Schools guidance to familiarize yourself with how healthy indoor environments are created, managed and sustained. You may also use IAQ Tools for Schools presentations from past Symposia or webinars to help educate your pacing event attendees and empower them to implement comprehensive IAQ management plans.
4. Share Your Success
- (Coming Soon!) Check out photos from the Summit on our
Flickr. Post photos from your own pacing events, too.
- To share updates on your pacing events, or for more information on SHIELDS, email IAQschools@epa.gov. Your story may be highlighted in an upcoming E-newsletter or on this webpage.