Footprint and NewGen Collaboration
Last Edited: June 15, 2020 by Rey Garza
As you can tell from the title, Footprint has officially collaborated with NewGen Peacebuilders! This takes Footprint and NewGen onto another level. The announcement was made on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and I’d say that it’s fitting for this exciting collaboration. The following will go more in depth of their collaboration and how you can be involved.
You may be curious as to why this is such a big deal or what NewGen Peacebuilders is. Firstly, NewGen Peacebuilders is a peace education program that focuses on impacting the youth of today. As they say, their goal is to “Make peace education a rite of passage for everyone.” I can speak from experience, having been in the program, that this is more than accurate.
I served on their Environment Team, and through NewGen we were fortunate enough to meet the initiative’s founder, Dakota Stormer. We came to Dakota about our concerns on food sustainability, and it turned out he had similar concerns. Our group made two lesson plans based on food sustainability that could be taught in schools. Dakota then helped us develop our project into something more: embedding our lessons into the Footprint App and its curriculum. This really pushed the collaboration between Footprint and NewGen.
What this entails is that in the upcoming 2020-21 academic year the Footprint App and environment sustainability and peacebuilding lessons will become available in all 50 states. The curriculum will start in high school in mainly environmental science classes. If you have a passion for the environment and repeating peace then you know exactly how important it is to teach what this curriculum plans to do. The lessons empower teachers and students, like me, to respect our Earth and to reduce carbon emissions.
There are many different types of lessons that make it achievable to create an impact on students! Say you’re interested in the environment and carbon neutrality but don’t exactly know where to start. These lesson plans give a perfect demonstration of how to reduce your carbon footprint but also making it fun and interactive, truly giving you an insight on environmental sustainability with a focus on the carbon footprint.
Assignments Presented in the Curriculum:
Carbon Lesson
Carbon Clue
Carbon Crunch
Carbon Challenge
5/6. Food Sustainability
7. Litter Quitter
You can help by bringing awareness to your school and or environment science teachers about the curriculum. I’m going to be taking my first “Earth Environment” class and mentioning this program is a great ice-breaker for meeting new teachers that would be interested in this. It’s a sure-fire way of getting involved in environmental sustainability as well as showing how serious you are about it to your teachers.
To wrap this up, a special thanks to Rotary because they sponsor availability of the materials in local schools. They stay true to being, “People of Action”, and uniting people across the world. Rotary helps build the path for a better education for everyone. I would also like to mention the person who announced the collaboration; Patricia Shafer, Executive Director of NewGen Peacebuilders. She helped with the initiative which grew from multiple connections including the support from Rotarians.
“Young people are incredibly concerned about climate change. Those young people speaking up are not being listened to nor are they given the adequate information to help be the solution to climate change.”
-Patricia Shafer said this to my group during a workshop.
What this entails is that in the upcoming 2020-21 academic year the Footprint App and environment sustainability and peacebuilding lessons will become available in all 50 states. The curriculum will start in high school in mainly environmental science classes. If you have a passion for the environment and repeating peace then you know exactly how important it is to teach what this curriculum plans to do. The lessons empower teachers and students, like me, to respect our Earth and to reduce carbon emissions.
There are many different types of lessons that make it achievable to create an impact on students! Say you’re interested in the environment and carbon neutrality but don’t exactly know where to start. These lesson plans give a perfect demonstration of how to reduce your carbon footprint but also making it fun and interactive, truly giving you an insight on environmental sustainability with a focus on the carbon footprint.
Assignments Presented in the Curriculum:
Carbon Lesson
Carbon Clue
Carbon Crunch
Carbon Challenge
5/6. Food Sustainability
7. Litter Quitter
You can help by bringing awareness to your school and or environment science teachers about the curriculum. I’m going to be taking my first “Earth Environment” class and mentioning this program is a great ice-breaker for meeting new teachers that would be interested in this. It’s a sure-fire way of getting involved in environmental sustainability as well as showing how serious you are about it to your teachers.
To wrap this up, a special thanks to Rotary because they sponsor availability of the materials in local schools. They stay true to being, “People of Action”, and uniting people across the world. Rotary helps build the path for a better education for everyone. I would also like to mention the person who announced the collaboration; Patricia Shafer, Executive Director of NewGen Peacebuilders. She helped with the initiative which grew from multiple connections including the support from Rotarians.
“Young people are incredibly concerned about climate change. Those young people speaking up are not being listened to nor are they given the adequate information to help be the solution to climate change.”
-Patricia Shafer said this to my group during a workshop.
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