All around the city, schools are embracing and thriving on green. Some are learning about climate change from teacher resources like Earth Day NY or Facing the Future. Others are building green roofs, using watt meters and composting food scraps.

The Green Gremlinsof Grace Church school pairs middle school students with elementary schoolers to run green activities, which range from making used Christmas cards into valentines for people in a hospital, to recycling keys and used gift cards, or raising money for Haiti by selling old electronic games.

Seeds in the Middle, currently piloting at PS 91 in Brooklyn, teaches students how to grow, market, find and cook healthy food.

PS 333, the Manhattan School for Children, expects to break ground for a pilot greenhouse on the roof, this summer. When finished it will teach kids about environmental sustainability, food, and nutrition.<!--more-->

These three schools will join dozens of others, plus green businesses and nonprofits, for the biggest ever citywide green schools event on Saturday, April 17, at Martin Luther King high school complex on Amsterdam at 65th Street. The fair, called GSNYC2010, will be “an amazing opportunity for people who care about green schools to share ideas and information, to learn and network,” said Peg Watson, president of the Green Schools Alliance, which is co-hosting the fair with the Department of Education’s Division of School Facilities. (I am also involved with organizing the fair).

I’m hoping that many of the NYC schools that participated in the Green Cup Challenge energy reduction contest will be there (the Green Cup Challenge schools made awesome energy reduction videos by the way). I’m hoping to hold a bottle of Activeion, the green cleaning spray that is made of pure ionized water. I’m hoping to meet some champion recyclers and waste reducers fromGolden Apple Award-winning schools.

Seriously, if you go to this fair on April 17 you are going to be inspired, and you are likely to feel better about the future after talking to these students, nonprofits, and green companies. Admission is free for all school and nonprofit exhibitors, and all attendees.

More information about how to register and who exhibited last year can be found here.