Grade of Green’s Water Earth Tips provides your school with a library of environmental tips you can us to spread awareness and inspire and educate your school community about ways to care for the environment by conserving water or protecting water quality. You can publish these Water Earth Tips in your school’s e-newsletters, say them over morning announcements, or add them to bulletin boards. Because it requires a minimal time commitment, it is a great starter Grades of Green Activity! Additionally, if you’re looking to take water conservation to the next level, this is a great Activity to layer on to existing water-related Grades of Green Activities.
ESTABLISH YOUR SCHOOL’S GRADES OF GREEN TEAM. Ensure that your school has established a Grades of Green Team to help implement Grades of Green’s Research and Advocacy and any other Grades of Green Activities your school takes on in the future.
Step 2
GET YOUR SCHOOL ON BOARD Set up a meeting with your school’s Grades of Green Team leaders and your principal and campus leaders to discuss implementing Grades of Green’s Energy Classroom Presentation Activity. Let them know why you think it's important for your school to spread awareness about the Earth conservation and protecting the quality of the Earth. Click here for an example email to send to your principal and an example agenda. Encourage your principal and Grades of Green team leaders and members to register on Grades of Green’s website and affiliate themselves with your school’s profile page so these leaders can track your school’s progress. If any questions come up during the meeting, please contact Grades of Green at (310) 607-0175 and we can help answer them. You can also email us here in advance with any additional questions, to get additional tips, or to schedule a practice meeting to help prepare.
Step 3
SET GOALS AND START TRACKING. What do you want to accomplish by implementing Grades of Green’s this Activity? Whether it’s setting a goal of the number of students involved or the number of gallons of water saved, trees planted, or waste diverted, set a goal and begin tracking your progress so you know when it’s time to CELEBRATE! Record your starting baseline metrics before beginning so you know when you’ve accomplished your goal!
Step 4
FIND A LEAD VOLUNTEER A leading volunteer can help organize the team to tackle all the components that are involved with Water Earth Tips.
After you’ve viewed the list of Grades of Green’s Water Earth Tips above, select the Water Earth Tips you think will be the most impactful to students at your school. Once you’ve narrowed your top choices down, ask your Grades of Green Team for input and start mapping out your publicity plan.
Step 6
WHERE WILL THE WATER EARTH TIPS BE PUBLISHED? Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Select a few different ways to communicate each Earth Tip to students, parents, and teachers. The more ways you’re able to add Water Earth Tips into your school community, the more likely people are to see them and implement the tips. Everyone has different learning styles, so challenge your Grades of Green Team to brainstorm ways to share the Water Earth Tips visually, verbally and even make them interactive. Click here to learn more about learning styles. Here’s some examples of how other Grades of Green schools have used our Earth Tips:
-Add to your bulletin boards
-Ask students in your Grades of Green Team to read Tips over morning announcements
-Add to your school's E-Newsletters
-Add to your school's social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
-Cut the tips out and make a collage-style display board
-Get creative and make campus-wide poster displays
-Kick it up a notch! Ask local businesses, your city council, school district or local community center to share your selected Water Earth Tips around the community to spread the message far and wide.
-More ideas? Let us know at info@gradesofgreen.org how you used the Water Earth Tips so we can add your ideas to the list.
Step 7
MEASURE THE RESULTS Remember that goal you set earlier? How’d it go? How many Water Earth Tips did you successfully spread awareness with or how many students participated?
Step 8
CELEBRATE AND SHARE THE RESULTS Congratulations! You completed Grades of Green’s Water Earth Tips and we couldn’t be prouder. You helped inspire and empower students to care for the environment, and the earth is just that much better off as a result. Email us the results you achieved and tag @gradesofgreen on social media so we can help share your story. Whether it’s “before/after” photos or videos showing how you took on the Activity, or a shot of your Grades of Green Team in action, tag us on social media so we can shout it from the mountains (or at least on our website, e-newsletter, and social media).
Step 9
MAKE IT SUSTAINABLE What can you do to make sure Water Earth Tips are published at your school next year and in the years to come? We suggest making Grades of Green positions permanent as well as adding the Water Earth Tips you implemented this year to your Grades of Green Team, PTA or volunteer handbook. Before you head out for the next school year, choose a student or volunteer who will oversee Water Earth Tips next year to make sure the legacy continues.
Benefit to Students
By receiving Grades of Green’s Water Earth Tips, students will learn about how and why to protect the environment. For those students in charge of publishing the Water Earth Tips, it will be empowering for them to take concrete action to protect our earth by educating their campus community about easy ways they can care for the environment.
Benefits to the Environment
Grades of Green’s Water Earth Tips will motivate people to reflect upon or even learn more about the issues affecting the environment, as well as simple things they can do to care for the environment.