CELEBRATION TOOLKIT
The ways that you can fulfill the celebration aspect of your application are endless, and you and your students can have a ton of fun with it! Below, we have provided some resources for setting up a few different types of celebration, but you can always mix-and-match or just use some of the resources to develop a unique event. Remember, to fulfill the celebration requirement of the application, your event must be held annually and must engage the whole school, not just one class or grade level! |
Eco Film FestivalFrom Cannes to Sundance, people love film festivals! Your school can host your very own and show films to educate, entertain, and inspire your students on environmental themes. We have compiled a collection of videos that are free to access, student-friendly, and showcase our world's pressing environmental problems and the actions people are taking to resolve them. Some films, like Timber, use animation and metaphor to communicate the very scary realities of environmental degradation. Others, like How Kids Saved the Parks, tell stories of how even young students can mobilize and make real changes to preserve and protect the environment.
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Celebrate Earth HourThe official Earth Hour will next be held on Saturday, March 28, 2020, from 8:30-9:30PM. However, you shouldn't be scared to put on your own school-wide Lights Out challenge just because that's a weekend! For one hour on a particular school day, shut off the lights and power down/unplug electronics to conserve energy. And you can make it fun! Partner with a history teacher so students can explore what learning was like before we had electricity, or gather for dim-light story time! Even better: use the opportunity to take classes outside and do a schoolyard clean-up. The options are only as endless as your creativity!
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Trash CleanupA trash clean-up is an action project that the whole school can get in on, and its effects are tangible and dramatic. If your school is on the larger side, you can stagger your clean-up by assigning each grade a particular time or area. If there isn't a lot of trash outside, you can assign some grades tasks like sorting recycling, collecting trash bins, or even planting some native flowers around your school entrance. Especially if you have to stagger the clean-up, MAEOE suggests following the clean-up with an ice cream social or something similar so that the students can literally taste the sweet success that hard work can bring!
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