Educating people about how to go green can be daunting (heck, even Al Gore needed PowerPoint). Luckily, there’s a free ready-made curriculum if the people you want to reach are K-8 students.
Cool the Earth is an adaptable program designed to teach young students how they can reduce their carbon emissions and why they should. It’s currently reaching 57,977 students in 290 schools and Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops. Click here and it can be in yours too!
Created by concerned Bay Area mom Carleen Cullen, Cool the Earth seeks to show kids how they can single-handedly fight climate change at home. It starts when teachers put on an educational play that pits polar bears against the villainous Mr. Carbon. Then kids take home a coupon book to complete with the family, full of tips like using a reusable lunch bag and taking shorter showers. So far, close to 125,000 total actions have saved 95 million lbs. of carbon.
“We’ve found that kids are incredibly motivating when it comes to behavioral change within a family,” says communications director Jenny Jedeikin. “Parents hear these things [like don't use plastic bags] all the time, but adults are set in their ways. When kids find out that this is damaging to the environment, they become inspired.” In the same way that parents give in to sugary cereal requests in the grocery aisle, they can be swayed to go green, Jedeikin says.
Watch the video below to learn more about Cool the Earth, then enroll your favorite school or troop and get ready to don a polar bear costume.
Photo courtesy of Cool the Earth.