Student Leadership: Sc3 - Student Climate & Conservation Congress 2024

In partnership with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center, the Green Schools Alliance was proud to host Sc3, the Student Climate & Conservation Congress, once again in July 2024.

Sc3 is a week-long youth leadership training program for rising 9th to 12th grade students. The theme of SC3 2024 was Storytelling. From engaging workshops to kayaking down the Potomac, learning from inspiring guest speakers, sharing tales around the campfire, and tackling group projects on real-world climate and environmental challenges, the students who attended SC3 now have a new chapter to add to their personal stories as young climate leaders.

“Sc3 was truly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Absolutely life changing!!” Arielle, 2024 Sc3 Fellow

Create A Vision for Your School’s Sustainability

For Chadwick School (CA), collaboratively creating a sustainable vision was when sustainability really “went wide” and became an effort that now “fully encompasses the campus”.

In her first year as Sustainability Coordinator at Chadwick School (California), Science Teacher Tori Faye initiated a collaborative process, involving staff, faculty, and students, to define their school’s sustainability vision. Getting together the coalition took communication. "I spoke at assemblies, sent emails, and invited anyone interested to join. We ended up with around 18 participants who met monthly for about nine months.” Through a very collaborative process, they formulated an aspirational vision statement, with a focus on the questions: Who are we? What do we do? Why does it matter?

They brought their efforts to the school administration, who gave the green light to officially launch it to the community in January of 2022. Since then, their Sustainability Vision has been both a strong, cohesive foundation and a momentum-building catalyst for their school’s sustainability initiatives. Read more about Chadwick’s visioning process here.

#1: Sustainability Events for Students

Sustainability Events are important because they educate and energize students for environmental stewardship, and cultivate a school culture committed to sustainability.

Events can range from a student-led sustainability assembly to an Earth Day Event (April 22 each year), movie screening, guest speaker, summit, workshop, green science fair, recycled-materials art exhibition, or second-hand clothing fashion-show and swap.

In 2024, San Domenico School (CA) hosted an Earth Day Event that included a keynote speaker, an expo run by the 11th Grade Social Justice class, an Ethical Clothing Exchange, and a film screening of the film 2040. For the lower school there were eco-crafts and recycling activities, an Insect Discovery Lab, a guest ambassador from a bird rescue center, and a Nature Hike.

By the numbers: Of START Schools in the 2023-2024 academic year: 27% hosted 1 sustainability event, 20% hosted 2 sustainability events, and 32% hosted 3 sustainability events!

Congratulations to these schools for launching their Whole School Sustainability journeys through START! See a map of our START schools here.

• Foote School, Connecticut USA

• Concord Academy, Massachusetts USA

• The Harker School, California USA

• The Branson School, California USA

• Rye Country Day School, New York USA

• Episcopal High School, Virginia USA

Green Schools Alliance is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, created by schools, for schools, with a mission is to connect and empower schools worldwide to lead the transition to a sustainable, equitable, and climate-resilient future.

Ways to get involved:

1. Get your school to sign the Sustainability & Climate Leadership Commitment to join 8000+ schools and districts who have already answered the call to action.

2. Join the GSA Community for resources, best practices & a peer-to-peer network of school sustainability champions.

3. Use START: Sustainability Tracking, Analytics & Roadmap Tool to benchmark, plan, track and collaborate for Whole School Sustainability.