The Earth Prize

The Earth Prize is a $100,000 environmental sustainability competition open to teenage students worldwide. It recognizes and awards students who develop the best solutions to accelerate positive change towards environmental sustainability. Registration ends on November 30, 2024.

The Slingshot Challenge

The Slingshot Challenge from the National Geographic Society invites students aged 13-18 to submit a 1-minute video describing their idea for solving environmental issues for a chance to receive up to $10,000 in funding. Submissions are due by February 7, 2025.

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

• Green Farms Academy, Connecticut USA

• Polytechnic School, California USA

• The Northwest School, Seattle USA

Build Relationships and Coalitions

The reality is: You cannot transform your school alone. Fostering relationships, building coalitions and driving collaboration are some of the most important strategies for school sustainability catalysts.

Liz Cutler, who spearheaded sustainability at Princeton Day School (NJ) recognized, “The school needed a team. Thirty-five faculty, staff, and administrators responded to my initial invitation to brainstorm, and together we created long lists of green hopes and dreams in three areas: facilities, curricula, and institutional behavior. From that original group of volunteers emerged a sustainability team who met monthly to see what we could accomplish with no money and very little institutional power.” From these small beginnings, sustainability at PDS has blossomed into one of the school’s hallmarks.

Tori Faye from Chadwick School (CA) recommends building the broadest coalition you can build. “[A sustainability coordinator] needs to “make meaningful touch points with facilities, with every grade level, with the administration, with the staff, with the parents, with alumni… every single constituency is part of this process.”

When building relationships, how you communicate about your school’s sustainability matters. Frank Barros at the Nightingale-Bamford School (NY) says, “If you're just presenting [sustainability] data and stepping on people's turf, no matter how good the data is, they might shut down. Behind the scenes, you could end up burning some bridges [and] it’s going to limit how far you can go in the long term.” One of the best ways to avoid this? Celebrate the work that’s already being done.

#44: Food Procurement

By the time food arrives neatly on our plates, it’s easy to overlook the people who had to produce, plant, harvest, or transport it. We might not consider the conditions in which the animals were raised, how plants were grown, or that ingredients may have traveled thousands of miles to reach us. Yet our food choices have an impact, and they may unwittingly be contributing to pollution, emissions, animal cruelty and worker exploitation. 

Schools have a unique opportunity to support food systems that uplift workers, animals, the environment, and local economies, and to model these values for students and the school community. Sustainable food procurement is: 

Below are some tips to begin integrating more sustainable food procurement practices in your school. Remember these tips for communicating about sustainability and building relationships!

⇒ Assess where your cafeteria food comes from 

• Which regular ingredients come from local producers, or are certified as humane, ecologically-sound or fair?  See recommended certifications.

• The Real Food Assessment Tips is a helpful reference tool for researching whether a product meets the criteria.

⇒ Develop a Sustainable Food Procurement Policy 

• Formalize a commitment to sustainable food procurement. See examples in the GSA Community. 

• Check out the Solicitations Toolkit from the Good Food Purchasing Program, which includes sample language to embed a commitment and example vendor questionnaires.

⇒ Partner with local farms and food hubs 

Half (50%!) of Vermont public schools have partnered with the Local Foods Incentive Program to meet local purchasing targets in their school meal programs. Read one of their recent success stories: First Year of Vermont Organic Milk for Vermont’s Schools.

⇒ Grow produce on campus

This hands-on approach, seen at San Domenico School (CA) and Princeton Day School (NJ), helps students gain knowledge of sustainable farming practices and the environmental impact of food systems, and can even result in some fresh produce for the kitchen!

At Chicago Public Schools, the Healthy CPS Initiative and Eat What You Grow program has allowed schools to grow, harvest, and serve vegetables that are grown at the schools themselves! The CPS School Garden Toolkit provides resources for garden-based and environmental education at schools.

At Boston Public Schools, the Boston Schoolyard Initiative transformed barren lots of land into flourishing outdoor spaces. There are now 83 school gardens and 38 outdoor classrooms offering natural eco-system features, weather stations, vegetable and herb beds, and safe play spaces.

⇒ Tap into Student-Activation Resources that educate students about food systems and sustainability

• Climate Generation: Food Solutions Activity Pack (grades K-2)

• Smithsonian Science Education Center: Pick Your Plate! Game (grades 4-8)

• Educated Choices Program:The Ethics of Food Presentation (grades 8-12) 

• Johns Hopkins Center for a Sustainable Future: Food System Primer  

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 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.