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Our Mission

To educate and empower students to take action and lead environmental change.

Our Vision

A clean and sustainable environment for generations to come.


Our Values

Spread Awareness

Endorse education as the key to building a world that values sustainable thinking, encouraging action, and awakening young minds.

Nurture Respect

Act with honesty and integrity towards ourselves, others, and the Earth by upholding the highest ethical and sustainability standards.

Foster Collaboration

Uphold a model of teamwork that promotes collaboration among students and between students and their communities.

Encourage Fun

Cultivate an inspiring, engaging culture that celebrates success and promotes positive reinforcement.

Empower Young Minds

Believe that students are key agents for social change and have the power to bring new perceptions, inspire others, and make a difference.

Ensure Accessibility

Ensure our programs are free to all, reach diverse student populations and that the organization actively seeks out and welcomes people who have historically been excluded because of race, gender, socioeconomic status, sexuality, or ability.

Drive Impact

Provide programs that are measurable, sustainable, and scalable over time.


The Grades of Green Approach

Grades of Green provides students with the support and resources they need to discover their passion and turn it into environmental action. We differentiate our approach by offering personalized mentorship and hands-­on environmental leadership training through project­‐based learning, including required civic engagement projects that actively work on environmental issues to create impact, today. Working with schools across the world, we’ve created a global network of young environmentalists who are able to learn from one another to find solutions to today and tomorrow’s environmental challenges.


Grades of Green’s Program Pathway

A Path Forward

Grades of Green has developed an innovative pathway of programming to fully support students of all ages and backgrounds worldwide on their journey to become passionate environmental leaders of the future.

The Destination

Grades of Green is launching three new programs over the next two years that are free for students, schools and parents which will meet the following objectives:

  • Provide accessible, engaging, educational and impactful environmental project-based programs for students in every grade level
  • Develop and implement programs to be scalable, sustainable, equitable and measurable
  • Build and empower environmental changemakers and leaders to initiate and inspire local communities to make long-lasting impacts
  • Bring students around the globe together to work toward transformative solutions

Learn more about our Program Pathway


Support Grades of Green

Interested in supporting Grades of Green’s mission? Thanks so much!


Thank You from Grades of Green

Grades of Green’s History

Grades of Green was started in 2009 by four Southern California moms – Lisa Coppedge, Shaya Kirkpatrick, Suzanne Kretschmer, and Kim Lewand Martin – who saw that their children and their peers were frustrated by the lack of resources to act on the pollution and waste issues that were increasingly affecting their community. They realized that the Earth’s environmental problems would be left to the next generation to solve and wanted to equip today’s youth with the skills and tools to deal with this environmental inheritance now. They began by developing student-led programs for their elementary school that would create a more sustainable campus and instill environmentally friendly habits in the students. As the volunteer organization grew and other local schools showed interest in replicating its programs, the founders created a website to provide free resources and sought outside funding to share their school programs, and in 2010, the non-profit Grades of Green was founded.

Staying True to Our Mission

From the beginning, the mission at Grades of Green has been to inspire and empower youth to care for the environment and make environmental protection second nature in young minds. This has been accomplished through student-led programs that meet students where they are at and empower them to take concrete action today that will result in environmental improvements in their community for years to come. Through project-based learning and leadership programs, Grades of Green students are reducing waste, protecting resources and advocating for change both at the school and community level. 


To date, Grades of Green has inspired over 670,000 students in 47 states and 27 countries to care for the environment.

Program Development

A short time after we became a non-profit, Grades of Green introduced two successful programs, the Grades of Green Youth Corps Leadership Program and the Trash Free Lunch Challenge. The Youth Corps brought together a committed group of select students actively caring for the environment by creating and implementing a year-long Green Project in their school. Youth Corps students received regular guidance and leadership training from Grades of Green staff members, as well as from other fellow Youth Corps students. The Trash Free Lunch Challenge was a competition held by Grades of Green that provided participating Los Angeles area schools with education and a personalized waste reduction plan and then challenged them to see which campus could reduce its lunchtime waste the most over the course of the school year.

The RISE Campaigns

As the programs grew in popularity and effectiveness, Grades of Green began looking for ways to scale their impact and include students from all over the world. In 2018, Grades of Green combined best practices from both of their successful programs to create the RISE Water, Waste and Climate Campaigns. The RISE Campaigns are virtual programs that provide student teams across the globe with the mentorship and leadership training needed to take concrete steps in their communities to address and solve the environmental issues that are most pressing to them and turn their goals into action.

The Climate Solutions Campaign

In 2020, Grades of Green conducted a thorough evaluation of our existing Campaigns, including feedback from our staff, students, educators and volunteer consultants from the University of Southern California’s Los Angeles Community Impact Services. In response to our students’ needs and experts’ recommendations, we:

  • Redesigned our campaign to focus on the climate crisis. Inspired by the many calls to action during the summer of 2020 and the need for social justice advocacy, we expanded
    our focus on Environmental Justice throughout all five phases.
  • Extended the timeline from one semester to the entire school year.
  • Added multiple student engagement webinars.
  • Developed an online, interactive Guidebook to lead our
    students to make powerful environmental impacts while
    gaining skills they need to become the next generation of
    Eco-Leaders.
  • And we didn’t stop there! We added specialized teacher trainings, including webinars and the opportunity to earn a stipend upon leading a student team through the Campaign.

Hear About our Students’ Successes!

Get involved!

Interested in getting involved in Grades of Green? We’d love to connect! Please send us an email at info@gradesofgreen.org with a little bit of information about you and how you’d like to help!