Earth Day celebration! April 22 is Earth Day! The best day of the year! Convince your science class to have a small class party celebrating our Earth! Get the students from your school to wear blue and green and take a huge class picture! In any way that you can, make sure people know about Earth Day.

• In addition to this green goal, everyone is encouraged to be as eco-friendly as possible at the convention! Make sure all of your delegations are aware of the recycling bins placed throughout the hotel and remind them to turn the lights off in their rooms when they are not in use!

• Have a great day and we will see you at the convention!

  March 2016 

  Hello everyone and Happy March! We hope everyone is enjoying the school year! March is the perfect month to begin saving our Earth so listen closely.  The green goals we have previously given you this year may have seemed small, but hopefully they have been effective! Butttttttttt, we think it’s time to step it up with our March theme of Environmental Restoration.

  1. Get together with some friends and go clean up a park, stream, sports complex, anything! There has to be a place in your community that comes to mind when you think of litter. Get some friends together, go out to lunch, and then go have a day of clean up! It can be a lot more fun than you think and you can talk to a teacher in your school about getting service learning hours for it!

  2. Plant native trees in your area that you think could use some more green. Sometimes there are places that just need a little tree to brighten up the scenery. This is another activity that can be done with a group of friends and made into a super fun day!

  3. Promote the use of waste bins in your community where litter is evident. Although cleaning up the park is a great first step, there’s no use in stopping there! Talk to the adult leaders in your area about setting up waste bins in the park or increasing the amount of them around the soccer fields/wherever it’s needed most.

  These green goals require a little more of your time but the impact you can have on your community and the planet is huge. We know you guys can handle it. Someone could see you and your friends out restoring your community and be completely inspired to do the same thing! Remember to have fun with it and as always, send us pictures!

  February 2016 

  Hello all! We hope you are enjoying the snow and the snow days that come with it. What better way to spend a day off from school than making your life greener?! Yeah we can’t think of any. Well good news because the February Green Goals are here to help you out. The theme for February is……. RAISING AWARENESS!!! We know that all of you amazing people having been hearing about how to help the environment over the past few months, but what about the other people in your schools, families, and communities? Here’s a few ideas:

  1. Put an announcement on the morning announcements that will promote green living to the students at your school. Make it catchy so it will grab students’ attention! There may be someone looking for an opportunity to help and just not sure where to go with their big ideas!

  2. Teach an environmental workshop at your next general assembly. It doesn’t have to be long. Taking a few minutes to educate students on the environmental impact that they have on the world and give them a few tips of ways they can help (HINT: previous green goals work for great tips).

  3. Read your local paper for a week and educate yourself about the environmental issues occurring in your local area.  There may be something you can do in your area that will make an amazing difference and you could have no idea!

  4. Start a green organization or eco-club at your school if there aren’t any already. It only takes a few people and an adult who is willing to supervise! Your small club could grow to be extremely influential in your school.

  Thank you for giving us the last several minutes of your life to read this amazing email. REMEMBER: We want pictures of you participating! We hope you have fun participating and make your own lives a little bit greener!

  January 2016 

  Hello everyone and Happy New Year! We hope you all had a fantastic holiday season and are ready for a great year ahead! Looking for that perfect New Years Resolution? How about doing your part to save the Earth! And we have ideas on just how you can do it. The theme for the January Green Goals is Over-consumption and Waste. Sounds fascinating, we know. Here’s how you can help:

  1. Pack a waste free lunch. Yeah it might be easy to pack a brown paper bag lunch and then just throw away all of the bags when you’re done but where does all that trash go? INTO THE EARTH! Taking a lunch box and using containers instead of bags is a great solution! It might be just a little bit more work but the effect it can have is enormous!

  2.  Plan your meals to ensure that you are not buying food that will end up going to waste. Also use reusable grocery bags when buying your items. It can be so easy to walk through the isles of the market and pick up a huge amount of appealing items that end up sitting in your pantry until they expire. Try planning out your meals for the week and only buying the amount of food you will need. Of course you can buy all of the cookies you want, but don’t buy a new box when there’s already one sitting in the back of the drawer. Also remember to use reusable grocery bags when shopping for your items!

  3.  Donate unwanted clothing, furniture, and other household items to a second hand store instead of  forcing them to end up in a landfill.  Cleaning out your closet or the pile of clutter in your attic is never a fun job, and it’s easy to just throw all of your unwanted items into the trash. DON’T DO IT. You don’t want all of that stuff to end up in the landfill especially when it could go towards helping a family in need.

  As always feel free to send us pictures of you and your friends participating in the green goals! We hope that you have a great start to your year and a great time going green!

  December 2015

  We hope you are all enjoying the holiday season and are ready for all that it brings. And what better gift to give than helping out the world! The theme for the December green goals is…… RECYCLING! Even though recycling is a common practice in many homes, it is important to keep this up through the holidays especially at big family dinners! Here’s a few things you can try if you feel you’re ready to take your recycling game to the next level.

  1. If you are not already doing so in your home, start recycling bottles, cans, cardboard, and newspapers. If you recycle one or two of those, try taking on another! Large cardboard boxes that you may have laying around work as great bins to keep your recyclable items in! Don’t forget to recycle gift wrapping paper too!

  2. Create a recycled art project. Need something to do on a snow day? Make a recycled art project that can be used as the centerpiece to your holiday dinner or a gift for your amazing mom. Pinterest is a great place for some creative ideas- just look up “art projects with recycled materials” and you’ll find a ton! Think outside of the box and make sure to send us pictures of your fabulous creations!

  October 2015

  1. Take a “Navy Shower” During a “Navy Shower” you turn the water off to lather and then turn it back on to rinse off. You can also time your showers and set personal goals to cut down and reduce the amount of time the water is running.

  2. Turn off water while brushing your teeth. Just like during a shower, you aren’t using the running water during the whole process that you brush your teeth. Leaving the water off while brushing and then turning it on at the end to rinse is a simple way to save!

  3. Save the water that is wasted while waiting for the shower to heat up. This one is a little tricky and takes some commitment. Nobody likes getting in the shower until the water is the perfect temperature, but think of how much water is going straight down the drain while you wait! Gathering the water in tubs or containers will provide you with a stockpile of water that you can use for watering plants, tending to your garden, and other household uses.

  September 2015  

  1. Unplug phone chargers and other unnecessary appliances from walls during the day. It’s a very simple concept: unplugging your phone charger or bed lamp or nightlight from your wall before you go to school. However, it will decrease your electrical usage, conserving the amount of energy being released, ultimately making the Earth happier
  2. Challenge your family and friends to energy baseball. Those of you who have attended a Chesapeake Bay Foundation program are familiar with the “Energy Baseball” game. Basically, if you see a light on in a vacant room, you scream “LIGHT” or whatever fun word you decide, and it then becomes a race to turn it off. In your home, you can do kids vs. parents. If the kids leave a light on and the parents are the first to turn it off, the kids receive a strike, just like baseball. You can come up with a consequence for getting 3 strikes and really get competitive! This is a great way to make something as simple as remembering to turn off a light, an everyday habit.
  3. Encourage teachers to have class without lights. So I know you are not all as privileged as I am to attend the great Allegany High School, so I will now tell you a short story. Wayyyy up in Allegany County sits the wonderful, old, falling apart, Allegany High School. This one of a kind school features broken windows, broken heaters, and yes, only several air conditioners that are for the most part also broken. Since temperatures reach a refreshing 90 degrees in this poorly ventilated school on a daily basis in the warm months, most classes take place without lights on as an effort to keep the room as cool as possible.  Although this is not the case in other schools, turning the lights off for class is an easy way to bring these environmental challenges to your school! Also don’t forget about turning out lights when classrooms are not in use.