CummingHome.com Your free local source for news, events, and business in and around Cumming, GA

Gretchen Gigley has joined The Clean Air Campaign as director of education, leading the organization’s statewide school outreach efforts. In this capacity Gigley will provide schools with no-cost consulting services and turnkey programs that allow entire school communities to make a positive impact on Georgia ’s air quality.

After graduating from Ohio University with a degree in environmental health, Gigley entered environmental education as a program manager at Southface in Atlanta . Over the course of six years, she developed and ran all of the institute’s K-12 education programs. Following her tenure at Southface, Gigley continued to advocate an environmentally focused curriculum for students as lead teacher at the Glenn Memorial School before pursuing a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Georgia . After obtaining her degree, Gigley spent two years honing her expertise in community planning, parks and greenspace design at Ecos Environmental Design.

In her new role at The Clean Air Campaign, Gigley will oversee the five-year-old Clean Air Schools program, directly engaging Georgia’s students, teachers and parents in environmental education related to air quality, as well as encouraging transportation changes such as bus ridership and walking to school.

Clean Air Schools is a free initiative available to all elementary, middle and high schools around the state. To participate, schools choose to roll out at least one of four programs: a No-Idling Program directed at drivers to turn off their engines in the carpool line or bus line; Air Quality Lesson Plans incorporating science, social studies, math and other skills; Walk There! For Clean Air, encouraging walking to school where practical; or Ride The Bus! For Clean Air, promoting bus ridership where available. The Clean Air Campaign provides guidance and resources at no cost to support these programs, from signage to state-approved lesson plans and promotional materials for student, teacher and parent participants.

“The Clean Air Schools program is growing at a rapid rate, with more than 100 new schools joining in just the past two months,” said Kevin Green, executive director of The Clean Air Campaign. “With Gretchen’s leadership skills and expertise, she’ll help to advance the efforts of these and our 119 other Clean Air Schools, reaching nearly 230,000 students.”

In her initial weeks on the job, Gigley has been surveying progress county by county and has noticed positive signs beyond growing enrollment.

“Excitement on the part of community groups and PTAs is higher than ever before, showing new opportunities to reach beyond the borders of our partner schools and into the communities where we hope to enact change,” said Gigley.

With asthma causing an estimated 540,000 missed school days a year in the state, and Georgia having the third-highest rate of obese and overweight youths in the nation, programs that promote healthier breathing and exercise aim to enhance quality of life for all Georgia students and educate them about the importance of clean air.

For more information on joining the Clean Air Schools program, visit CleanAirCampaign.org and select the “Kids & Schools” tab.

About The Clean Air Campaign

The Clean Air Campaign is a not-for-profit organization that works with Georgia’s employers, commuters and schools to encourage actions that result in less traffic congestion and better air quality. To accomplish this goal, The Clean Air Campaign, along with its associate organizations, works with more than 1,600 employers to create custom commute options programs; and annually helps thousands of commuters find commute alternatives that work for them, providing financial incentives to get them started. The Clean Air Campaign also protects public health by issuing Smog Alerts and empowers students, parents and teachers to play a positive role in reducing traffic and cleaning the air through a multi-faceted education program reaching elementary, middle and high schools.

Each day, these programs eliminate 1.6 million miles of vehicle travel and keep 800 tons of pollution out of the air we breathe. For more information, call 1-877-CLEANAIR (1-877-253-2624) or visit CleanAirCampaign.org.