Class acts: Cool the Earth: Environmental education on the cheap 

As California public schools fight to preserve basic services to children—and the list of cuts to enrichment activities grows ever longer—there’s one educational program that’s actually expanding without breaking the bank or interfering with an already overcrowded instructional day.

Established by two parents in 2007 at the A.G. Bacich Elementary School in Marin County’s Kentfield School District, Cool the Earth programs are run by environmentally conscious volunteers—mostly parents—who work with students during recess, lunch periods or before or after school.

“We wanted to do something that wouldn’t tax teachers—they have too much to do already,” says Carleen Cullen, who created Cool the Earth with her husband Jeff after both were inspired to action by the global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” After trying unsuccessfully to motivate their adult friends to begin making environmentally friendly changes, the Cullens decided to focus on the younger generation.

“This program is really about our kids’ future,” she says. “Adults tend to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge. But children are naturally enthusiastic and optimistic.”

Aimed at kindergarteners through eighth-graders, Cool the Earth is helping students at more than 100 California schools reuse, recycle and conserve by making small changes—both at school and at home. The program also operates in other schools around the country.

“I didn’t start out thinking I would be establishing a program that would spread to other schools,” Cullen says. “But it turns out this program is very portable.”

Funded by a combination of public and private grants, the nonprofit Cool the Earth provides the costumes and scripts to introduce the program at participating schools, as well as sample activities and projects, that tout the virtues of environmentally friendly habits like keeping (fluorescent) light bulbs screwed in tightly and car tires properly inflated and reusing water bottles and food containers. Students get points for getting their parents involved and can redeem coupons for instituting environmentally friendly habits at home like recycling newspapers and substituting chicken or turkey for beef.

Each participating school keeps track of the cumulative impacts of all these incremental changes, and the results—along with school profiles—are posted on the Cool the Earth Web site.

As of press time, 45,604 participating students taking part in more than 82,000 actions had reduced carbon emissions by more than 65 million pounds, according to the program’s Web site, www.cooltheearth.org.

Teachers can and do volunteer to participate in Cool the Earth activities, but the program is mostly supervised by parents. Most schools opt to host an assembly to introduce the program, Cullen says, “especially when they find out it’s free.” The program is currently offered to schools free of charge, although donations from participating schools are welcome.

The program was a boon for a school like Orion Alternative School in the Redwood City School District, which is facing especially tough budgetary times after the recent failure of a parcel tax.

Emily Fagans, who chairs the school’s Green Committee and has two children at Orion, says the committee wanted a green program that wasn’t expensive and wouldn’t ask too much of teachers. She was delighted with what she found on the Cool the Earth Web site. “They had the whole thing laid out for us,” she says. “We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Clearly they had spent a lot of time designing the program. They gave us the framework, and we inserted in into our curriculum.”

Fagans says Orion students were excited about Cool the Earth from the moment their principal stepped out on stage during the introductory assembly—dressed as planet Earth. “We got teachers involved, too. Cool the Earth supplied the script and the costumes,” she says. “The kids roared with delight to see their principal and teachers in costume.”

Since Orion instituted the program a year ago, students have undertaken a number of projects—including a “Junk the Junk Mail” campaign, during which students made a collage of discarded junk mail and learned to help their parents opt out of unwanted mass mailings. Students also made their own reusable book bags. Fagans says she and other volunteers offer the program during lunch period.

“It doesn’t take a lot to run it,” she says. “All we ask of teachers is that they make a couple of announcements and be enthusiastic.”

Cool the Earth has prompted some changes in the Fagans household—inspired by the first- and second-grader who live there. “Our minivan stays in the driveway most mornings now,” she says. “We bike to and from school. There are some busy intersections, but we’ve gotten used to it. The kids have gotten the sense that: ‘Hey, we can get some place without the car!’ ” 

—Carol Brydolf

• WHO: Cool the Earth
• WHAT: Parent-run school-based nonprofit environmental education program aimed at K-eighth graders that makes energy conservation fun
• WHEN: Since 2007
• WHERE: In more than 100 California schools
• WHY: To educate and inspire a new generation of environmentally conscious young people at little or no cost to schools
• HOW: Recruit parent volunteers to operate program and provide inspiration, free activity guides, materials, teaching aids, scripts, costumes and other support needed to launch program
• MORE: www.cooltheearth.org