This week is Composting Week!

From May 5 2019 to May 11, 2019, celebrate composting week by being more mindful of your food waste!

1. Reduce the amount of uneaten food this week.

Try planning your meals ahead of time and placing older food in the front of your refrigerator and older food in the back and labeling foods by date, you can keep your meals and ingredients fresh. By keeping your foods fresh and in good condition, you can reduce the need to throw away food in the first place.

2. Learn How to Compost!

Follow these tips to compost! To get started, you simply need a closed container (with small air holes), browns (dried leaves, coffee grinds, saw dust), fruit and vegetable scraps (no meat or dairy products), and a little bit of water! This container will naturally breakdown your food waste and organic materials as long as you stick to using the right ingredients and turn the compost once a week!

3. Use your compost!
You can use the compost created by your container to grow plants, vegetables, and herbs to create your own food! If you don’t want to grow plants, feel free to donate your compost to a local organization or a nearby gardener!

Let us know how long you have been composting in our social media page!

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!

The Grunion Gazette featured Grades of Green and the Waste Campaign!

Communications Contractor Justin addresses the importance of environmental education in his interview with the Grunion Gazette by stating:

“When students take the lead and pursue environmentally conscious projects, it really encourages people and other students to do more projects like this.”

Students in Grades of Green’s Waste Campaign have an opportunity to not only learn about waste issues, but to do their own research to see what they can do to improve their own environment. Long Beach Grades of Green Mentor Cathy states:

“This contest isn’t just calling for students to get out and pick up trash- that’s a good thing of course, but Grades of Green is trying to get young kids to think deeper about helping the environment.”

Read the full article HERE

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!