On May 14th, winners of the 2018 Water Campaign, Columbus Tustin Middle School held their second annual Climate Solution Summit. Hosted at their middle school campus in Tustin, California, over 200 local students participated in the event – which was attended by the Mayor of Tustin, Charles Puckett, the Mayor Pro Term, and several School Board Members.

During the 2018 Water Campaign, this ambitious, grand-prize-winning team saved water through many practical means on campus. They greatly reduced the amount of water needed to wipe down tables after their science course demonstrations. Their school reduced the number of gallons needed to wash their equipment from 100 gallons of water down to 3 gallons of water. The team impressed teachers and students through their creative solution and willingness to serve their community and environment.

Mrs. Kim O’Mally, Columbus Tustin Middle School’s Green Team Lead, remarked that “the students were fabulous stewards of change.”

“They spent the past four months diving into Climate Change, creating their own driving questions, researching, writing Political Action Letters, developing an educational plan and take-home solutions to share with our community, so we can ALL do our part in combating Climate Change,” O’Mally added.

The Climate Solution Summit held on May 14th was covered by CT Spectrum News 1, click here to see the segment.

Student Leaders from all around the world are making eco-action happen in their communities. Grades of Green is here to bring student sustainability solutions to life. Join our Fall Campaign now, and bring Eco-Action to your community.

Water Campaign Friendships

Two years ago, Aquatic Society of Omaha from Nebraska and St. Roza from Uganda joined our 2017 Water Campaign. These two teams met each other through the Campaign as partner teams and learned about methods to improve water quality and water conservation efforts. During the Campaign, the two teams communicated a common interest in water conservation, food security, and improving sustainable agricultural efforts. Since first meeting each other, Aquatic Society of Omaha and St. Roza have collaborated on several environmentally focused projects and have kept in contact in future Campaigns. We’re happy to see our Campaign teams get along so well!

Continued Collaboration

These veteran Grades of Green Campaign teams have continued to participate in environmental efforts together- most recently in the Pollination Project. Aquatic Society of Omaha and St. Roza are committed to learning about modern agricultural practices in order to improve agricultural efforts, learn about water dynamics in soil, and improve sustainable resource usage. Both Aquatic Society of Omaha and St. Roza are working to improve awareness and solutions for water issues by researching the impact of water scarcity and by working on food growing units. By improving food growing aspects in incremental steps, the teams are improving water and quality by incorporating water testing and soil testing kits into food growing units while taking action on other agricultural measure. Other innovations include adding nets to the bottom of food growing units to prevent pests from attacking food roots and adding enriched soils to these kits.

Join the Water Campaign!

Want to join teams like Aquatic Society of Omaha and St. Roza in fighting water issues around the world? Feel free to join us in our next Water Campaign here!

Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a great partner team to collaborate too!

Grades of Green was featured in South Bay Magazine!

The Southern Californian magazine highlighted Grades of Green student efforts in communities, local governments, and beyond. Co-Executive Directors, Allie and Emily go on to talk about how Grades of green started and how much the programs have expanded. In the article, Allie mentions Grades of Green’s humble beginnings, stating:

“[Grades of Green] was an idea from a group of passionate parents who really wanted to work with their young children and the peers of their children to help them learn some environmental habits they could carry with them for a long time,” says Allie. “It started off with the idea of engaging students in simple habits like turning off the water when brushing your teeth or using both sides of paper before recycling it. It evolved from students not only wanting to practice those habits but also lead environmental projects and activities in their communities.”

Click here to read the rest!

Finding Facts Amidst Fiction

With the amount of information available in the world today, how do we know what claims made about the environment are trustworthy? While some scientific articles, ads, and headlines make claims that seem too good to be true, others make outlandish claims to draw readers in. Fake news published in articles, blogs, and ads have been distributed by organizations and individuals who have interests that benefit from dissuading people from believing in real scientific studies. In recent years, fake news has reached more people than ever before due to social media sharing and information bubbles.

To fight scientific misinformation in the classroom, Andy Zucker and Penny Noyce have developed a “Resisting Scientific Misinformation” curriculum for science teachers who educate 6th – 12th grade students. It’s a free online curriculum program aims to help young students distinguish scientific ‘misinformation’ from reality.

Learn more about it here: https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/02/lessons-on-telling-scientific-fact-from-fiction/

Here are the top 4 ways to fight scientific misinformation in the classroom and beyond:

– Ensure that your news is credible by reading through some citation sources and checking in to see if the piece is an opinion piece or from a blog written by a non-professional. Opinion pieces allow people to state their opinion rather than absolute facts.

– Be aware of claims based on personal stories, people using their status to assert that their opinion is correct, and the phrase “the science is uncertain.”

– Check out these news related tips to see how fake news works and how to be aware of sources that use “truth-stretching” methods. This will help you determine more accurate news sources for what you want to learn!

– Download the Resisting Scientific Misinformation Teacher Guide here at https://tumblehomebooks.org/services/resisting-scientific-misinformation/

Download our quick tips guide here!