From April 22-26, students at Bryant Ranch Elementary participated in a school wide Earth Week campaign which was proudly sponsored by the school’s Green Team. Activities included a week-long trash-free lunch program, a free student-led Eco-craft focusing on paper waste reduction, and environmentally friendly participation prizes.

During the week, students were encouraged to bring in reusable water bottles, reusable lunch containers, reusable napkins, reusable forks/spoons, reusable lunch bags and other earth-friendly ideas. Supervisors were on hand to reward students who participated with special Earth Week Brag Cards. Over 300 students participated each day.

On Thursday, April 25, the Green Team explained how to re-purpose gently used paper into beautiful origami shapes. This Eco-craft was held during both lunches, so all students (1st through 5th grade) had the opportunity to participate. Students learned that re-purposing or “up-cycling” paper is a less expensive option to recycling paper. Participants re-purposed paper into origami hearts.

At the end of the week, those students who earned “brag cards” for performing environmentally friendly actions were able to redeem prizes. Prizes for Earth Week participation were donated from several local agencies including the City of Irvine, Orange County Fire Authority, Orange County Water District, and Southern California Edison.

Students at Bryant Ranch Elementary actively participated in the Earth Week activities, and enjoyed learning how to help save our planet.

Bryant Ranch Elementary School’s Green Team operates a daily waste awareness program. Green Team members assist other students sorting food waste (for compost), recycling plastic and aluminum waste, and re-using unopened items (for the Second Harvest Food bank.) To date, they have sorted waste from over 50,000 lunches.

Join The Water Campaign!

Want to make a difference like Bryant Ranch students? Join us this Fall in our Water Campaign to prevent single-use plastics from hurting our precious water sources by clicking HERE!

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!

Grades of Green’s First Waste Campaign a Major Success

This new Campaign included 80 teams from 77 cities and 13 countries. Collectively, Grades of Green Waste Campaign teams diverted over 229,000 pounds of waste (114 tons) from the landfill and educated over 25,000 leaders and community members around the world! These numbers will continue to grow as the student teams expand on their waste reduction projects.

We are proud to announce the 2019 Spring Waste Campaign Finalist Campaign Teams, who achieved exceptional results. Please watch and share their campaign videos to get inspired by their innovative waste solutions.

Mira Costa High School (California)

Mira Costa’s team led 3 beach clean ups in their community during the month of March. They recruited volunteers by reaching out to their community through social media and local news outlets. The team educated participants about the effects of plastic and litter in our oceans and on our marine life. The result of the 3 beach clean-ups was about 250 lbs of trash; crushing their goal of 100 lbs. The team plans to continue hosting beach clean ups once per month. See their video HERE.

Human Environmental and Animal Rights Club at CAMS (California)

The HEAR Club at CAMS high school was driven by the knowledge that people, on average, throw out 70 lbs of clothes every year and that the textile industry is the second highest contributor of waste. This team hosted several used-clothing drives as well as workshops that taught others how to upcycle used garments. They exceeded their goal to collect 10 bags during the clothing drives by collecting 11 bags. Some clothes were donated and some were upcycled into new garments. See their video HERE.

Whitney High School (California)

At Whitney, the Waste Campaign Team members recognized that everyday a considerable amount of food waste was going to the landfill. By implementing a compost collection at lunchtime, the team collected about 30 lbs of food waste to put into their tumbler composter bin during the campaign. They continue to collect compostable scraps at lunchtime, educate the students and staff at their school and fundraise in order to buy a second (much needed) compost bin. See their video HERE.

Bridgeport Elementary School Green Team (California)

During the Waste Campaign, the Team working at lunch noticed the large number of good food items being thrown into the landfill bin. They were appalled, and wanted that food to go somewhere it could be eaten. The team decided they wanted to donate the food to the local Food Pantry and Homeless Shelter, and the Grades of Green mentors provided resources and guidance to help best put ideas into action. In order to raise awareness and encourage other schools in their community to start a Food Rescue program, Bridgeport shared their video and program with all the families at their school and with all the schools in their district. See their video HERE.

Daves Avenue Elementary School (California)

Daves Avenue uses approximately 12,000 crayons every school year and as the Waste Campaign students discovered, crayons do not break down well in the landfill. With a goal in mind of diverting 120 lbs of crayons from the landfill, the team joined the Crayon Initiative. The Crayon initiative recycles old crayons into new crayons and donates them to children’s hospitals. The team set up boxes to collect the crayons to send them in to get recycled. See their video HERE.

Bryant Ranch School Green Team (California)

The team of 30 students recognized their school was wasting a lot of paper. They analyzed one class per grade level to get an estimate of how much paper is used and wasted. They collected boxes that were filled up completely to sort out those that are only 1-sided to be used again. For the paper that could not be reused, they put 3 actions in place: 1. find a paper recycling agency to take the bulk paper goods 2. shred them for packaging at school and 3. turn scrap paper into art projects for classrooms, including origami, bookmarks, and paper mache. See their video HERE.

Boys and Girls Club at Towne Avenue Elementary (California)

The Boys and Girls Club at Towne Elementary estimated that 100 milk cartons are destined for the landfill from their school everyday. They learned that it takes about 5 years for a milk carton to break down in the landfill and wanted to start recycling cartons at their school. They educated all the students and staff and created a fun basketball game as a way to encourage students to recycle their cartons and have fun with it. See their video HERE.

Will Rogers Learning Community (California)

The team at Will Rogers recognized a huge issue at lunchtime: 25 bags of landfill waste everyday. With the help of a few dedicated parents, the team set up sorting stations at lunch to separate liquids, recyclables, organic waste, landfill and trays. Since implementing the stations, over the course of the Waste Campaign, they decreased lunch time landfill waste by 85 trash bags by implementing sorting stations. They also decorated recycling boxes for all classrooms to increase paper recycling on campus.

Deep Creek Middle School (Virginia)

This innovative team created a virtual “Escape Room” to inform students about tackling waste. Specifically focused on single use plastics. Along with the Escape Room, they implemented “Plastic Free Fridays” encouraging fellow students to replace single use items with reusable items. They had the opportunity to present to their school board about the excess waste created by the food provider, including wrapping oranges in plastic wrap! See their video HERE.

PSGR Krishnammal Nursery and Primary School (India)

Students at this school took food waste VERY seriously. This team made sure that all food on campus was eaten or composted. In addition, the school made presentations and a song to show the importance of not wasting food. They involved their entire community including all students, parents, administration, school board, and government representatives. The team also had goals to limit plastic, reduce all waste going to the landfill – not just food waste, and to store food properly to reduce spoiled food.

Meadows Elementary (California)

This team made a series of “how to” videos that taught their fellow students and community how to reduce waste, pack trash free lunches, and how to properly sort their waste at lunch. They also added on the Food Finders program so that any unopened cartons of food or beverages or unpeeled fruit could be donated to local families in need of food. The students have been dedicated to educated staff, administration, and parents through their “how to” videos. See their video HERE.

Bottega Delle Arti Creative (Italy)

Like to dance? Bottega Dance School has made public performances to educate others about Rome’s environmental issues and infrastructural problems. The main issue the high schoolers focused on was overflowing garbage bins throughout the city. Along with their innovative video, they have presented the problem through conferences and art exhibitions. See their video HERE.

Hughes Green Team (California)

The Hughes team found that the use of single-use condiment packets was a big waste issue on their campus. The packets end up becoming litter and often ends up in the ocean. The students prepared a proposal for the LBUSD Nutrition Services Department to switch from single-use condiment packets to sauce dispensers. They met with their district’s Nutrition Services Manager to discuss the solution even further!

Feeling inspired?! Join Grades of Green for our 2019 Fall Water Campaign here. And stay tuned for an update on the new theme for our Campaign teams!

Different Water Issues Requires Diverse Solutions

Water issues can come in different shapes and sizes around the world. In Grades of Green’s Water Campaign, students have the freedom to choose which issues that they want to address and tackle.

As a result, students around the world have been tackling an assortment of water issues in their own way!

Bottega Delle Arti Creative in Rome is a dance school that is addressing Rome’s serious water infrastructure issues. Rome is currently one of the largest water leaking cities in the entire world due to their aging piping infrastructure and lack of funds to address this issue. Through dance, the school is not only bringing awareness if this issue to citizens in Rome, but also to an international audience through online videos and seminars with guests hailing from around the world.

Unity Charter School in Morristown, New Jersey had a huge team of environmentalists this year. They decided to tackle all kinds of water issues based on their students’ interest. One of their students wanted to tackle the water quality issues affecting their beautiful beach. He planned to host communal cleanups along the beach to help his community not only appreciate the beauty of the nature but also respect it by encouraging event-goers to keep the beach beautiful by picking up litter.

St. Roza in Kampala, Uganda has been trying to conserve as much water as possible due to their area’s lack of water infrastructure and their inconsistent rainy and dry seasons. In addition to their newly built well, St. Roza is relying on a series of rain barrels to increase their water conservation efforts to prepare them for the upcoming dry season.

None of this would be possible without the generous help from our sponsors:

– The Boeing Company

– Sanitation District of Los Angeles County

– Long Beach Water Department

– Northrop Grumman

– LAcarGUY

– LA Kings Foundation

– Subaru Pacific

– County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl

– Carton Council

– Downtown Manhattan Beach Business & Professionals Association

– Johnson Ohana Foundation

– West Coast Event Productions

– Grand View PTA

– Optima Energy

– Continental Development

– Klean Kanteen

Follow us on Social Media and let us know YOUR favorite way to save water!

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!

Across the world, Grades of Green Schools are completing a variety of environmental activities!

A few schools have been tackling plastic waste, like Daves Ave Elementary. Other schools have been preoccupied with water conservation and water quality, like St. Roza. In Florida, one ambitious Grades of Green Team is preparing to promote environmental awareness for Earth Week! Saint Mary Magdalen Catholic School’s Grades of Green Team is currently ramping up their efforts to engage their school!

Throughout the semester, the team worked on a presentation on plastic waste and ocean contamination. They hope to distribute the presentation throughout the school’s televisions to educate students about waste and environmental issues during lunch and passing periods. Their Grades of Green Team is also working on placing posters or “Recycling Rovers” near recycling bins so that students can easily see what waste is able to recycle. Lastly, the team has introduced a raffle to provide incentives for school members to engage in the “Recycled Art” activity! Participants who complete the activity are entered for a chance to win a prize!

Commitment and Beyond

Saint Mary Magdalen Catholic School isn’t just committed to the environment during Earth Week- their highly organized team has made plans to keep their momentum going for next year. Next semester, the team plans to host a field trip to educate and inspire new members in their team. Although the planning is still in its early phases, the team is sure that the trip can instill an appreciation for Earth’s beauty and the need to engage in environmental action!

In addition, the school will collaborate with Clean the World during the Fall semester to reduce waste created from soap bars remains. By recycling used soap bars, the school can help create create and provide clean shampoos and other hygienic materials for those in need around the world.

We can’t wait to see how Earth Week turns out for this ambitious team!

Want to join an awesome network schools fighting to improve the environment? Click here to become a Grades of Green school!

Students and teachers at St. Roza in Uganda are taking initiative to help conserve the environment. Today we Skyped with the incredible students who are already planting trees around their community and neighborhoods, filtering drinking water and much more. Several students are members of Wildlife Club at their school whose motto is to ‘conserve nature’. Kids of all ages are being encouraged to conserve water by harvesting rainwater and reducing water misuse. So far, students at St. Roza have concluded that the majority of water in their community is used for home chores such as for cooking, cleaning, toiletry, and irrigation. After making this assessment, students are currently focused on finding innovative ways to cut down water usage for household activities! St. Roza is part of Grades of Green’s Water Challenge Pilot Program. Keep up with the students at St. Roza by referring to our blog. You can also follow in St. Roza’s footsteps by registering here and utilizing Grades of Green’s Earth Tips to spread the word on campus!

Grades of Green is excited to host its first ever webinar on Facebook Live about improving air quality through establishing a No Idle Zone! Schools across the country are invited to join us on February 22nd as we explain the dangers of toxic car emissions and how students, parents, teachers and volunteers can take action to spread awareness about air pollution and improve their school environment. The Webinar is a great way to help schools implement Grades of Green’s No Idle Zone Activity, with step-by-step instructions to encourage drivers to turn off car engines as they wait at school drop-off and pick-up areas. According to Hamilton County Environmental Services and Air Watch Northwest, 3 pounds of pollution per month is put into the air for just one vehicle drop-off and pick-up at a school. Reducing idling on school campuses greatly reduces emissions, which also shrinks the school’s carbon footprint and helps clear the air our children breathe. Through the interactive webinar, participants will be able to post comments in real time on Facebook and ask Grades of Green experts questions as we go, creating a dialogue that will give everyone the tools that they need to jumpstart the Activity. We are excited to offer the first 20 schools that join the webinar and take on the No Idle Zone Activity a FREE banner that students can display in front of their schools to remind drivers to turn off their engines

MORE INFO AND REGISTER HERE!