Girls Dream Big and Think Green with Dr. Jane

Dr. Jane Goodall is best known for her work with the wild chimps in Gombe National Park but perhaps, just as important, is her collaboration with young activists through her Roots & Shoots youth program, which promotes conservation around the globe.

There are about 8,000 Roots & Shoots youth groups with 100,000 members in 120 nations. Recently, Dr. Jane, as she is known by the schoolchildren, was at a school assembly at the King Open School in Cambridge, Mass. to celebrate the Sprouts of Hope group's schoolwide composting program, which turned 13,000 pounds of food waste into fertilizer during the past year. The five girls who belong to Sprouts of Hope Roots & Shoots group had lobbied the Cambridge School Committee and the school superintendent to create a conservation plan and install special composting bins in the King Open School cafeteria. The group hopes to expand the program and replicate it at other schools.

In addition to the six and a half tons of garbage saved from a landfill, their composting program also prevented the release of additional methane gas, which becomes 70 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a green house gas. Besides, Goodall says it's the small efforts now that pay off big dividends later.

"You can't expect a child to suddenly become involved in everything," Goodall was quoted as telling the King Open students. "You have to start somewhere."

And in fact, this is not the only campaign for the Sprouts of Hope group, which was launched by Maya Ludtke, 13, with the help of her mom Melissa after the two had seen Dr. Jane Goodall speak on Earth Day several years ago.  Recently, for example, the girls wrote a book entitled Energy Lite, which will be published and distributed through the Cambridge Public Library, and explains how to cut down your carbon footprint and electric bill by using a Kill-A-Watt Meter to measure how much electricity everyday appliances consume.

Also during Goodall's recent four-day tour of New England, she hosted a Leadership Summit at the Lenox Hotel with about 50 invited Roots & Shoots members from around New England where she discussed her new national campaign — endangered species and climate change. "People asked Dr. Jane questions and told her about the ways she had inspired them. We got to see the display boards of other Roots & Shoots groups. All the work going on is really inspiring and the summit gave us a chance to learn about that work," says Lilly Sandberg, one of the Sprouts of Hope members. The day before, at the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, while Goodall spent six hours signing her new book Hope for Animals and Their World, the Sprouts of Hope group were right next to her displaying their own tome. Melissa Ludtke purchased Dr. Jane's book for each Sprouts of Hope members and the author signed each of them with the same message, "Follow your dream."

"I feel happier already," Goodall said of the girls' efforts. "There will be a much better planet for my grandchildren."

Photo courtesy of the Jane Goodall Institute.