Halloween has long been known as one of the least environmentally-friendly holidays. Between countless candy wrappers, costumes made of harmful plastics, and decorations which burn a lot of energy; it can be hard to navigate a holiday which means so much to so many. Luckily, here’s Grades of Green’s Guide to an Environmentally-Friendly Hallo-green!

 

 

  1. Conscientious Costumes

Costumes sold at Halloween super-stores are often made of materials like PVC which contain phthalate. These materials may be flame-retardant but they end up in a landfill leaking toxic chemicals into the environment. In fact, extended exposure to these chemicals could have adverse health effects.

 

Host a costume swap! Just like with candy, everyone likes a little variety in their costumes! But rather than shell out cash for a new costume every year, host a costume swap with your friends and mix it up! If you’re unable to find friends in your size, join Grades of Green’s virtual costume closet!

 

Design your own costume using supplies you already have at home! Another way to save some green while going green, create your own hallo-green masterpiece from things around the house. Grades of Green’s Litter Monster is not only a great costume, but is a great way to raise awareness for waste reduction efforts.

 

You can also turn an old bridesmaid’s dress you’ll never wear into an undead party-goer with some homemade fake blood. Take an old yoga mat and turn it into a slice of pizza or a British telephone booth.

 

  1. Spooky Sustainable Decorations

Not only are the costumes and decorations comprised of materials which are non-combustible, the plastic packaging they come in only compounds their harmful impact. Rather than spend money on decorations which will likely be thrown out in November, recycle egg cartons into bats or make skeletons our of recycled milk jugs. Old stockings with tears can be made into spider webs, add a construction paper spider and your hallo-green party will be the talk of the town. The opportunities are endless and it can make for a creative DIY project for the whole family.

 

  1. Green Your Treats

While we would love to reduce waste, handing out candy which is not individually wrapped may not go over well with concerned parents. Instead, you can hand out organic goodies with a significantly smaller environmental footprint, like these organic lollipops.

 

  1. Potluck Party

Host a pot-luck hallo-green party and ask your friends to bring their contributions in re-usable containers. Halloween parties can be a huge perpetrator of environmental efforts due to single-use plastics. Hosting a potluck party using silverware instead of single use cutlery will significantly reduce the holiday’s environmental impact.

 

  1. Trick-or-Treat

Avoid hard plastic jack-o-lanterns that will never breakdown in a landfill. Instead using tote bags, reusable shopping bags, or a pillow case to collect goodies is an easy way to be environmentally-friendly.

 

Instead of driving to your trick-or-treat destination, walking will help reduce the number of dangerous pollutants we expel into the atmosphere. Not to mention that it will help burn off the countless calories consumed later that night!

 

  1. LED the Way!

Use solar panel lights to illuminate the path toward your haunted mansion.

 

Sweep your sidewalk when clearing a path for trick-or-treaters; you’ll be saving gallons of water by not using a hose.

 

  1. Pumped for Pumpkin!

Buy organic and shop local! You’ll protect water and reduce carbon emissions by picking up your pumpkin from your local farm. Click Here to locate your local family farm.

 

Save the seeds and pulp from your pumpkin to make delicious snacks and baked goods. By reusing or composting our unwanted pumpkin parts, we can reduce dangerous greenhouse gases. Check out our favorite recipes for Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, Pumpkin Pie, and Pumpkin Soup.

 

Our Water Campaign Student Teams will tell you that eating a meat-less pumpkin based meal would be protecting water. By reusing the pumpkin seeds and pulp we reduce waste. For more fun ways to reuse, recycle and reduce waste, register for our Waste Campaign now!

 

 

 

 

For more DIY projects, green activities, and other ways to remain environmentally-friendly, visit www.GradesofGreen.org. Send your green solutions or pictures of your Hallo-green Holiday to @gradesofgreen or send us a message on Facebook!

Interested in implementing a Grades of Green Activity this school year but need a little more funding? Sign up for Green Apple Day of Service where parents, teachers, students, companies, and local organizations from around the world will unite to implement volunteer projects and promote healthy and sustainable learning environments!

This year, Green Apple Day of Service participants make a commitment at the start of school and name their own project date for any time throughout the school year. To help with fundraising, Green Apple Day of Service is using the DonorsChoose.org platform to drive donations to schools, and the Center for Green Schools and its partners are providing thousands of dollars in match funding to projects that receive donations from their communities. Projects receive tailored guidance for their specific project date and project type, and they are eligible for prizes just by keeping up with planning and executing their project.

You can learn more about Green Apple Day of Service and sign up at greenapple.org.

Put your eco-literacy to the test! Are the following statements true or false?

1. If everyone in the world lived like an average American, we would need 5 Earths to sustain our lifestyle.

2. The hole in Earth’s ozone layer actually reduces the greenhouse effect but allows harmful UV radiation to pass through.

3. It takes 1800 gallons to grow cotton needed for one pair of jeans.

If you’re like half of all Americans, you may have had to look these questions up on the internet to find out they are all true, but these are some of the topics students are beginning to learn in the classroom thanks to a focus on environmental literacy. Environmental literacy not only means understanding the science of the environment and understanding society’s impact on the natural world, but also being able to make informed decisions to actively help the global environment.

Although schools across the United States still have a long way to go before all their students are environmentally literate, California had a recent victory in environmental literacy. With the support of over 130 organizations and state leaders like Senator Ben Allen, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de Leon, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, California Governor Jerry Brown approved a one-time budget of $4 million to fund environmental literacy in the state in 2017-2018. According to Ten Strands, this budget allocation will allow school districts to utilize community-based environmental education providers and ultimately improve critical-thinking and problem-solving skills about environmental challenges that will benefit students in schools, in their communities, and in the workplace. Way to go California!

Grades of Green supplements environmental education and literacy through experiential learning with our 40+ Activities that can be accessed online and implemented in the classroom, our Trash Free Lunch Challenge which teaches kids why and how to reduce their waste, and our Youth Corps Eco-Leadership Program which empowers kids to lead an environmental activity of their own from start to finish. For more information on how our programs can improve environmental literacy, email info@gradesofgreen.org or call our office at (310) 607-0175.

School may be out, but Grades of Green never takes a break from carrying out its mission to inspire and empower kids to care for the environment! Last week, Grades of Green educated 300 students from the Los Angeles Expo Center’s summer programs about the importance of reducing waste. Students learned about the 4 R’s and even played some of Grades of Green’s favorite eco-games. When playing the How Long Until It’s Gone game, students were surprised at how long it takes different manmade items to decompose in landfill. From plastic bags to glass cups, the Natural Resources Matching Game taught students where their everyday items come from in nature.



Interested in bringing some fun eco-activities into your classroom? Click here to register and unlock Grades of Green’s 40+ Eco-Activities!

Lush highlighted Grades of Green’s Trash Free Lunch Challenge and our mission to inspire and empower kids to care for the environment. Thanks to their sponsorship, Grades of Green was able to help schools across southern California reduce their lunchtime waste by an average of 70%! Read the full story by clicking here, or you can view a PDF version here.

Interested in signing your school up for the Trash Free Lunch Challenge? Email us at info@gradesofgreen.org or call our office at (310) 607-0175 for more information!

Grades  of Green is thrilled to welcome our summer intern, Gunner! Check out his story below to learn about how his passions help Grades of Green carry out its mission to inspire and empower students to care for their environment.

Gunner is an intern at the Grades of Green’s LA office. He is on track to graduate from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in March of 2018 and will earn a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Earth Science with a concentration in Environmental Assessment. Throughout his educational career, he has gained knowledge in the complexities of Earth systems and understands how essential it is that humans protect the environment. After graduating from Cal Poly, he would like to work on developing sustainable technologies that would help preserve Earth’s Environmental systems. Gunner is eager to join the Grades of Green team and hopes he can help them empower youth to care the environment by supporting Grades of Green’s Youth Corps Eco-Leadership Program, Trash Free Lunch Challenge, and 40+ Eco-Activities.

Interested in volunteering or becoming an intern with Grades of Green? Email info@gradesofgreen.org for more information.

Elementary, middle, and high school students from Grades of Green schools in Santa Monica, together with community and environmental activists, made impassioned pleas to the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Trustees this month to embrace sustainability throughout the district.  Seventy speakers were slated to testify about the necessity and benefits of long range sustainability planning.  Santa Monica High School students, some wearing “litter costumes”, shared data they collected while researching environmental concerns on their campus.  Waste, litter, plastic pollution, and water quality were some of the issues raised.  Even Grades of Green Youth Corps Eco-Leader Johanna J. joined the meeting to talk about her research on the environmental benefits of being vegan. Each speaker was allotted one minute to present their case. 

These students ROCKED the chamber.  Their voices were loud and their message was clear – include sustainability in the district’s mission, hire a sustainability officer, and establish a sustainability committee. 

These kids care about their planet and they stepped up to participate in the democratic process!  Want to learn ways that your school can care for the planet and implement an environmental activity like the Santa Monica Grades of Green students? Click here to register and unlock Grades of Green’s 40+ Activities. Interested in taking on an environmental activity of your own like Johanna? Click here to learn about Grades of Green’s Youth Corps Eco-Leadership program!

 

Grades of Green was featured in the Santa Monica Daily Press in recognition of all the Grades of Green Website Activities and Youth Corps Eco-Leadership Activities implemented throughout schools in Santa Monica! Check out the article here to see what schools in Santa Monica are doing to help the environment. Click here to register and unlock our 40+ Grades of Green Activities and click here to learn more about our Youth Corps Eco-Leadership Program.

Thanks to the help of National Charity League volunteers, Grades of Green was able to attend the Beach Cities Health District’s Taste of Blue Zone event last Sunday! Attendees sampled various mouth-watering yet healthy food samples offered by local Blue Zone restaurants. Grades of Green followed the healthy foods theme by offering guests vegetables, but these vegetables were not for eating – they were for stamping! Grades of Green’s veggie stamping activity involves dipping scraps from veggies like onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes in an ink pad, and then stamping the beautiful and intricate designs onto recycled paper cards. Interested in other ways that your school can utilize fruit and veggie food scraps? Click here to check out Grades of Green’s Waste Activities including our Campus Composting Activity and our Worm Bins Activity. Want help implementing activity? Click here to register with Grades of Green, unlock our 40+ activities, and get one-one-one support from an advisor!