Project Description

On the morning of Saturday, April 12, members of College Forward’s Student Leadership Council (SLC) at Crockett High School will lead a group of their peers and neighbors in an environmental improvement and education day, Green Up! Having already worked in the park to remove invasive species and large debris, College Forward students will now help to build a butterfly garden at Williamson Creek in South Austin. Following a morning of volunteer work, the program’s SLC will host an environmental fair onsite at the park. Booths and tables will inform other volunteers and community members about recycling resources in Austin, environmental legislation, easy green living tips, the recycling process, and green art. The students are also creating a game of Environmental Jeopardy to further engage attendees.

Project Description

Green Oakland Fair is going to be the first annual fair emphasizing the importance of going green in Oakland County, Michigan. I have collaborated with my county's Conservation District to make this ground breaking event happen. Saturday April 19th is their Annual Spring Tree Sale Pick up date, which also happens to be the weekend before Earth Day. We decided to work together and take advantage of the near 500 Oakland County residents that will be picking up their trees and spread the green message. The fair's main objective is to attract Oakland County families to come and learn about natural resource management, available programs and events for adults and children and available "Green resources" for residents. There will be various booths set up by local green organizations, for example, the local Sierra Club Chapter will have an interactive energy saving model at their booth. I have been contacting local green companies to come and demonstrate how to make everyday living changes in order to "Go green." I hope to use the available grant money to create promotional materials for the event such as t-shirts, stickers and balloons to make the event as festive as possible. We are also going to have contests at the different booths and I hope to be able to have trees to give away to the winners.

Project Description

MISSION STATEMENT:
We are committed that Seattle students will develop their own understanding of food and energy through direct experience with the community.
DINNER:
In Seattle on January 12th 2008, local communities of educators, builders, chefs, legislators and students will gather to discuss the future of environmental education in Seattle highschools.

Our goal is to discuss what is already in place and what people are doing that works and apply that to the future of education.

This will be a chance to demonstrate to Seattle schools and students our commitment to build youth understanding of how our environment works and what their role can be.

Direct contributions of time, materials and curriculum will be made to Seattle’s highschools by local people, organizations and companies.

Project Description

With the help of my college professor, I established the first commercial green roof in the state of Nebraska! Prairie plants—plants that would survive drought, and other harsh conditions—were used to cover the roof. A specially designed mixture, called RoofliteTM was used as a lightweight growing media. This planting media was tested for its water holding capacity and drainage properties before it was used.
So what does all of this mean? Economically, it means we are receiving huge energy savings by insulating the roof. Environmentally, it means less water pollution by retaining as much as 100% of 1 inch of storm water. Because plants act as a filter, it also means pure air and less diesel engine pollution. Green roofs reduce global warming and radiating heat from city structures by reducing solar energy gain up to 90%. For your health, clean air means a decrease in cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Reduced heat prevents organ damage and other health related problems. Of course planting a green roof is not the only solution, it is just one more step towards sustaining our environment.

Project Description

The Back Porch Energy Initiative is a non profit founded in May of 2007 by six college graduates who wanted to take action on critical local issues in the American southeast. The American southeast has the highest per capita energy consumption values in the country, spending only one fifth the national averages on energy programming and resources. The founders of Back Porch call the southeast home, and we decided to do something about these discouraging figures. In November, we are headed on a ten month tour of the American Southeast on a bus fueled by waste vegetable oil. We seek to empower under-served communities to take action on local, regional, and national environmental issues.

In each community we aim to address the issue of excess energy consumption and environmental degradation in three major ways. Our main goal is to foster an increased awareness of energy conservation and green thinking through free educational programs offered to the community. We will achieve this through visiting three prominent community member's homes offering these households our greening services. In these homes we will install energy efficient light bulbs, provide better insulation, and offer numerous other house greening techniques. We will then use the visibility of these community members to offer our educational programming with their social group (for example if we green a home of a pastor we will do educational programming with their congregation). Lastly, Back Porch aims to give communities the tools to effectively address local environmental issues into the future. Our environmental science and policy degrees combined with our campaign training through other environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network have provided Back Porch with a strong background in these pressing issues. We will be conducting campaign training at middle and high schools, use our musical talents to communicate our message at local venues, and attend all community events in order to be a presence about town. Through our educational programming we will have instilled a long lasting dedication to environmental thinking in these communities.

While we are in Virginia, we will be visiting a particularly distressed community, Petersburg and we want to green more than just three prominent community member's homes. We want to reach out to a larger portion of the population and green homes of those in particular need. About 16.7% of families and 19.6% of the Petersburg population live below the poverty line, including 27.1% of those under age 18 and 15.8% of those age 65 or over. We want to offer our environmental services to this community to help families save money and go green at the same time!

Project Description

The Back Porch Energy Initiative is a non profit founded in May of 2007 by six college graduates who wanted to take action on critical local issues in the American southeast. The American southeast has the highest per capita energy consumption values in the country, spending only one fifth the national averages on energy programming and resources. The founders of Back Porch call the southeast home, and we decided to do something about these discouraging figures. In November, we are headed on a ten month tour of the American Southeast on a bus fueled by waste vegetable oil. We seek to empower under-served communities to take action on local, regional, and national environmental issues.

In each community we aim to address the issue of excess energy consumption and environmental degradation in three major ways. Our main goal is to foster an increased awareness of energy conservation and green thinking through free educational programs offered to the community. We will achieve this through visiting three prominent community member's homes offering these households our greening services. In these homes we will install energy efficient light bulbs, provide better insulation, and offer numerous other house greening techniques. We will then use the visibility of these community members to offer our educational programming with their social group (for example if we green a home of a pastor we will do educational programming with their congregation). Lastly, Back Porch aims to give communities the tools to effectively address local environmental issues into the future. Our environmental science and policy degrees combined with our campaign training through other environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network have provided Back Porch with a strong background in these pressing issues. We will be conducting campaign training at middle and high schools, use our musical talents to communicate our message at local venues, and attend all community events in order to be a presence about town. Through our educational programming we will have instilled a long lasting dedication to environmental thinking in these communities.

While we are in Virginia, we will be visiting a particularly distressed community, Petersburg and we want to green more than just three prominent community member's homes. We want to reach out to a larger portion of the population and green homes of those in particular need. About 16.7% of families and 19.6% of the Petersburg population live below the poverty line, including 27.1% of those under age 18 and 15.8% of those age 65 or over. We want to offer our environmental services to this community to help families save money and go green at the same time!