The document proposes an environmental education program to teach sustainability to elementary, middle, and high school students. It would allocate 15 minutes per week for lessons on environmental topics. Students would hold clothing drives to fund projects and activities. The goal is for the program to be self-sustaining with a budget of $3,000 initially, then $1,000 after two years. The program aims to teach students responsibility, life skills, and how their actions impact the environment from an early age through familiar concepts built upon at each school level.

1. Business Plan:<br />Our society does not live sustainably. Our cars emit CO2; toxic waste pollutes our drinking water; overpopulation is spreading across the globe.<br />We need solutions—real, long-term solutions.<br />Happily, one such solution is looking us right in the face: today’s youth. <br />The only way we can change the future is by teaching the young to be the change. Our educational system must teach students how to be good stewards of the environment.<br />To that end, I propose to set up an innovative program to teach environmental sustainability to elementary, middle school and high school students. Here’s how the program will work. The program will be set up so that there is about fifteen minutes every week set up before during or after school. During this time students will get together with teachers, and will work on different projects along with being taught about new environmental topics. These topics will differ depending on what the students are yearning to learn and what topics interest them. Throughout the year children will hold clothes drives. With the clothes they collect they will then take them to a shop called Plato’s Closet. This is a store which buys back used clothing. The profit made will fund all the projects, speakers and any other activities, which the students and the teachers want. The budget to start out will only be three thousand dollars. Hopefully, after the first two years the program will fund itself or go down to a budget of one thousand dollars a year. I want to make sure that this is a program that lasts, so the less it costs our city and school systems the more likely the program is to stay running. If the budget does go beyond three thousand dollars or above the hopeful one thousand dollars after the first two years, I have already contacted numerous companies, such as GE, Plato’s closet and Tom’s shoes, which will assist in funding.<br />I want this program to be a continuum. I want the students to start out in elementary school learning the basics of environmental education, for example how to take care of the class bunny. Then in middle school I want the students to understand the importance or niches, the importance of habitats and what makes them healthy and thrive. Then when the students go to high school they should be learning about how to maintain a sustainable ecosystem and habitat. By the time the students finish high school they should have a greater understanding of the world around them. How the world works, why we must protect habitats, how every little critter really does matter in an ecosystem and most importantly they will understand that their actions do have an impact and they do effect the environment to some degree. Because the students have been seeing familiar concepts, just building on them every school change, it allows environmental awareness to be embedded within their young minds. This will benefit the future of our society because these students will have been given the opportunity to make connections with the world around them that other generations have not. <br />This program will benefit the students in several ways. The programs will teach responsibility, life lessons, life skills, sustainable living, cause and effect of one’s actions, life cycles, ecosystems and the effect we have on them, the importance of health, and how students can make a difference. These programs will also teach budgeting and setting up and achieving goals to the students. All of these will greatly benefit the students and will allow them to be more intelligent, and also more aware of their surroundings. I believe firmly that environmental education is the missing link in the education system. The environment has been around for as long as we have been here, thus it has been a critical part of our everyday life. Without the environment we would not have physics, or astronomers, there would be no naturalists in literature such examples as Henry David Thoreau and Edgar Allan Poe. There would also be no understanding of basic biology. This is why this program is so beneficial. <br />If a school is having trouble fitting in fifteen minutes a week to teach solely environmental education, they can easily just add in environmental education in what ever their class discussion for the day is. For example, if the teacher is teaching long division the teacher can easily create a few word problems, which involve animal extinction or other environmental topics. This way the time will be benefit ail on a grander scale.<br />These students are our future. And it is never to late to fix a problem, if you are proactive. So let us join now and listen to the voices of the future and incorporate these programs.<br />YouTube video also…<br />Speech from YouTube video presentation:<br />Our society does not live sustainably. Our cars emit CO2; toxic waste pollutes our drinking water; overpopulation is spreading across the globe.<br />We need solutions—real, long-term solutions.<br />Happily, one such solution is looking us right in the face: today’s youth.<br />The only way we can change the future is by teaching the young to be the change. Our educational system must teach students how to be good stewards of the environment.<br /> <br />I propose to set up an innovative program, one that your school needs. It will teach environmental sustainability to elementary, middle school and high school students. Here’s how the program will work. The program will be set up so that there is about fifteen minutes every week set up before during or after school. During this time students will get together with teachers, and will work on different projects along with being taught about new environmental topics. These topics will differ depending on what the students are yearning to learn and what topics interest them. Throughout the year children will hold clothes drives. With the clothes they collect they will then take them to a shop called Plato’s Closet. This is a store which buys back used clothing. The profit made will fund all the projects, speakers and any other activities, which the students and the teachers want. The budget to start out will only be three thousand dollars. Hopefully, after the first two years the program will fund itself or go down to a budget of one thousand dollars a year. I want to make sure that this is a program that lasts, so the less it costs our city and school systems the more likely the program is to stay running. If the budget does go beyond three thousand dollars or above the hopeful one thousand dollars after the first two years, I have already contacted numerous companies, such as GE, Plato’s closet and Tom’s shoes, which will assist in funding.<br />I want this program to be a continuum. I want the students to start out in elementary school learning the basics of environmental education, for example how to take care of the class bunny. Then in middle school I want the students to understand the importance or niches, the importance of habitats and what makes them healthy and thrive. Then when the students go to high school they should be learning about how to maintain a sustainable ecosystem and habitat. By the time the students finish high school they should have a greater understanding of the world around them. How the world works, why we must protect habitats, how every little critter really does matter in an ecosystem and most importantly they will understand that their actions do have an impact and they do effect the environment to some degree. Because the students have been seeing familiar concepts, just building on them every school change, it allows environmental awareness to be embedded within their young minds. This will benefit the future of our society because these students will have been given the opportunity to make connections with the world around them that other generations have not.<br />This program will benefit the students in several ways. The programs will teach:<br />Responsibility<br />Life Lessons<br />Life Skills<br />Sustainable Living<br />Cause and Effects<br />Ecosystems and the effects we have on them<br />Importance of health<br />Setting and Achieving Goals<br />Budgeting<br /> And last How students can make a difference. All of these will greatly benefit the students and will allow them to be more intelligent, and also more aware of their surroundings. I believe firmly that environmental education is the missing link in the education system. The environment has been around for as long as we have been here, thus it has been a critical part of our everyday life. Without the environment we would not have physics, or astronomers, there would be no naturalists in literature such examples as Henry David Thoreau and Edgar Allan Poe. There would also be no understanding of basic biology. This is why this program is so beneficial.<br />Benefits Schools:<br />Because Environmental education can be taught along side all other topics, it will be easy to incorporate.<br />By teaching environmental education it will allow all students to make more connections to what they are learning and thus will increase the conceptual understanding of what they are learning<br />By teaching environmental education to kids that are living in a society which is trying to go Green, it will benefit everyone. This is because we are teaching the students key important issues that need to be learned in order to understand the future of our economics and world<br />We cannot expect our kids to be eco friendly in the future if we do not teach them about it now.<br />It is time to make the change and incorporate it.<br />It also gives students an understanding of how the world works.<br />And also how to get creative while being responsible with the environment<br />This allows for an opportunity for ideas to flourish, which in the way will benefit the society.<br />I firmly believe that this program will cause students to get higher grades and a better understanding about what is going on in the world and how it works.<br />We would be monitoring the students progress through examining the SAT, ACT and CSAP scores before and after the start of the program along with monthly quizzes which will be short yet evaluate what has been learned and what the student has gotten out of this months projects or talks.<br />Challenges of the Program:<br />The program will have to ensure that its funding will always be there. The good thing is that I think the program will only need about $3000 dollars per school. This is because that is a low amount that should be able to fund all the projects. And if not the students goal will be to come up with innovative ways to get the community and local businesses involved.<br />Schools are suppose to be set up to teach the future generations how to go about the world, as the past generations have. Being taught about the minor errors, which past generations have experienced. Thus it allows the future to be brighter and not having history repeat itself.<br />Why not let our future generations learn from our un-Eco friendly ways and allow them to learn so that they can make changes for the future generations. Let our generation not make a silly error by not incorporating this much-needed program into the curriculum of schools.<br />Hong Kong is a great example, because they started incorporating environmental education Schools especially within kindergartens.<br />If you want to make a change, talk to those that can actually make the change.<br />That is not the school board, I apologize, but it is the students.<br />I have collected ANONOMOUS surveys from the students at a few schools within DPS legislation. And I have received word from the students that they want this program.<br />10 out of 10 students believe that this program will benefit the school<br />10 out of 10 students believe that this will drastically change the future<br />10 out of 10 students are curious as to why there is not a program already <br />The future has spoken put this program into action. Stop living in the past help the future.<br />Audience:<br />Easy:<br />Katie: She has a teaching license. She teaches and aids, and is on a leave of absent from school because she just had a set of twins. She loves children. She believes that students are the future and wants to assist them in any way. She loves the environment. She volunteers her weekends to picking up trash in her neighborhood parks. She would love to incorporate environmental education into the school’s curriculum.<br />Medium:<br />Lucy: Is a science teacher who has way to many students. She is stressed because of this. She loves her job and her students but she wishes that she did not have to teach to that many students. She is a very calm person but believes that she should be given a raise for her patience. She also believes that the school should help her get an environmental club started but the school says that she could not be in charge because of her other duties. <br />Hard:<br />Frank: Is a middle class father, who protests against any hippie activity. He is very republican. He believes if your helping the earth then you’re helping out the Democrats. He is the head of DSP. He does enjoy letting children learn about all the different opportunities there are in life. But he will not support hippy activities. He does not think they are neither beneficial nor needed in his community nor anywhere.<br />Annotated Bibliography:<br />Blackwell, Edward. How to prepare a business plan.<br />London: Kogan Page, 2002. This is an essential source because it explains how to create a business plan. This is crucial in having in my list of resources because I must create one. This book is very easy to follow the set up is easy to understand. It is very helpful. It really explains all the steps really well. It also gives me numerous ideas about how I can further expand on my business plan after this project.<br />Johnson, Edward, and Michael Mappin. Envrionmental Education and Advocay:Changing Perspectives of Ecology and Education. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. This is an excellent book it includes a ton of valuable information. It includes a ton of great insights. I used this book to understand the changing perspective of ecology and on environmental education. This book helped to explain what I wanted to target in my project. It also assisted me in understanding how I wanted to incorporated environmental education into my program, yet still making it effective and efficient.<br />Lo, Eva Yuen Yi. quot;
Early Child Development & Care;quot;
June 2010: 571-583. This article was fascinating it was about what Hong Kong was doing with its kindergartners. How Hong Kong was trying to introduce environmental education into schools. This was a very helpful article for me because it allowed me to learn what I wanted to incorporate into my environmental educational program. This article enlightened me on do’s and don’ts and it also allowed me to start thinking more and more about wanting to make this program a reality. This is because environmental programs are needed around the world.<br />