Grades of Green

Grades of Green has five overarching goals:

1. To provide fun, easy to implement, hands-on environmental programs that lead to measurable impact by changing habits and behaviors.

2. To inspire students, classrooms, entire school populations and communities to take environmental action to produce tangible results.

3. To encourage creative and innovative thinking in which students can create their own ideas for implementing environmental Campaigns at school and in their community.

4. To amplify student and school results and inspire others to care for the environment via social media, blog posts, media coverage, email and video.

5. To restore, protect and care for the Earth to ensure the future prosperity of the planet for this generation and generations to come.

Using a web-based model, we offer free instruction for “greening" schools and communities on our website, allowing students across the globe to gain access to over 40 Activities. Each Activity offers ideas, tools, programs and step-by-step guides to raise environmental awareness and actively protect their local environment.

We also offer personalized training to all student Campaign Teams, who are paired with a Grades of Green Mentor to research local environmental issues, implement individual solutions to those issues, spread awareness in the community, and advocate for local government policy changes. Mentors customize each Team’s experience by ensuring they receive the one-on-one attention needed to feel engaged and motivated to create lasting environmental change in their community.

During the 2018-19 school year we are targeting five different geographical regions for each Campaign based on and demand for environmental education and activism and partnership opportunities.

Grades of Green's overarching program engages students in grades K-12 in environmental activities appropriate to each grade level. In doing so, the next generation evolves to become a powerful force that cares passionately about environmental protection and environmental justice and takes action to achieve tangible results. That's a lofty goal, and our programs break the work into pieces that can be easily implemented, accurately tracked and measured for impact.

40 plus free, hands-on environmental activities centered around the themes of air, energy, toxins, waste, water, and Earth are downloadable from our website. But access to information doesn't necessarily link to implementation and sustainability. Accordingly, we have Grades of Green Mentors who are environmental education experts to deliver on-going, high-quality customized support. To enable Grades of Green Mentors to reach more students and schools, we provide virtual coaching.

We currently educate over half a million students from 650 schools across the globe. These students achieve impressive results that grow daily as thousands of people are inspired to take action to care for the environment. Because each student acts as a catalyst for others, the ROI keeps growing—the more teachers and students our programs reach, the larger the return. The passion we instill in youth and their spheres of influence leads to direct and measurable results - thousands of students educated; over 25 million gallons of water conserved; and over 624 tons of waste including shoes, textiles, clothes, and e-waste, diverted from landfills or recycled in ecologically friendly ways.

Grades of Green plans on building upon this momentum to further connect students to create a network of active and passionate students taking action to create environmental change