I’ve had a number of items hit my inbox this week dealing with teaching elementary school-aged kids about sustainability.
The Eleventh National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference is holding a Renewable Energy art contest for kids in grades K-8. The contest will accept entries through October 27th, and students from all around the US are eligible to submit art work. The winning artist wins a $50 gift certificate, and a special “Green Power Leadership Award,” and the top designs will appear on the walls of the conference’s meeting space, on a special set of greeting cards, and on the Conference web site. The contest will be administered by the Center for Resource Solutions, and sponsored by Community Energy (obviously a great company!).
Tired of having to buy or promote the sale of crappy holiday gifts, cookie dough and frozen pizza kits to raise funds for your kids’ schools? Apparently, so were Merry Ann Moore and Rob Corrigan. The married couple founded the Buckboard Provisioning Co., which offers a variety of unique, organic and socially responsible food products that schools can sell to make ends meet. According to Corrigan, the company’s CEO,
“ΒWe put a lot of effort into partnering with socially-responsible companies… All our products are provided by small, family-owned suppliers based in Oregon, and many are certified organic. This is consistent with our ‘Βeveryone wins’ business philosophy. Buckboard gets very high quality foods, our suppliers expand the audience for their products, and we all do something to improve our communities.”
Finally, Google Education (yep, Google again) is sponsoring the Global Warming Student Speakout, which started on Tuesday. The basic idea: teachers get their students “…to collectively brainstorm strategies for fighting global warming.” Teachers and their classes can still sign up — the brainstorming sessions and their results are due on November 2nd. Event partner GlobalSchoolNet will choose the top 50 ideas from those received, and those 50 will appear in the Washington Post.
Thanks to the various sponsors of these events, and to the founders of Buckboard Provisioning, for finding creative, engaging ways of introducing kids to sustainability.
Categories: education, kids, art, contest, renewable, energy, food, organic, local, sales, globalwarming, google, washingtonpost, us