WINNERS ANNOUNCED
During Fall 2023, high schools across California participated in the People and Planet Challenge, inspiring positive change in their communities through sustainability campaigns. The winning campaigns, focused on air quality and the environment, earned well-deserved prizes. Congratulations!
Missed the 2023 People and Planet Challenge?
Good news!
The 2024 Earth Day Challenge is happening now! Registration closes April 5, 2024.
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You can still complete the People and Planet Challenge to receive a Sustainability Specialist Certificate.
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Abraham Lincoln High School
Top Campaign (Bay Area)
Led by their teacher Valier Ziegler, 11th graders from Lincoln High School’s Green Academy carried out several engaging and important sustainability campaigns in their San Francisco community, securing their place as this year's grand winner of the People and Planet Challenge!
Green Academy students surveyed their peers and teachers to collect data on air quality issues. They then created fliers and videos, and some presented in their advisory classes – all to inform their community around these issues and suggest solutions.
Green Academy students surveyed their peers and teachers to collect data on air quality issues. They then created fliers and videos, and some presented in their advisory classes – all to inform their community around these issues and suggest solutions.
One group filmed a video (right) around the school neighborhood to inform the community about air pollution and offer alternative methods of transportation.
"Near the areas with freeways we noticed it's hard to breathe, the air was pretty bad in this area...We thought, 'this sucks but let's make a video because it's more digestible.' ...Not many students bike, so hopefully this will be good for them to know that there are other options that are healthier." – Kyle, 11th grader and video co-creator |
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Another group of students surveyed over 350 of their peers and teachers to collect data around Lincoln High School’s air quality to inform economically feasible solutions that they hope to present to their school’s PTSA (below).
Sharing advice for those interested in starting their own campaigns, Avery suggested, “Climb the social ladder. Talk to people higher up, rather than just changing your friends.” |
Additionally, one group developed a comic (below) and survey that aimed to inform readers about air pollution and how we can combat it.
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High Tech High
Top Campaign (Southern California)
Students at High Tech High International won this year’s People and Planet Challenge for the second year! They created an innovative campaign to improve the health of their school community.
Dawn Wirts’ 9th grade physics students took action to improve indoor air quality by building and delivering homemade air filters to elementary students at their school. Along with the air filters, students educated their younger peers through informative and interactive presentations that highlighted the impact of air quality on their lives. Their campaign stood out by combining tangible benefits to student health with an education campaign that truly enriched their community.
For their presentations to elementary students, as well as later presentations to adults in their community, groups of students focused on a range of topics related to air quality. |
Speaking about the value of this challenge for her students, teacher Dawn Wirts shared that SEI’s air quality testers and an interactive curriculum “not only helped my students understand the importance of air quality but also inspired them to take meaningful action.”
Some focused on the process of building Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes, the Do-It-Yourself air filters that they built to remove contaminants from particulate matter to the virus that causes COVID-19, such as this video (below).
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Other students focused on the role of environmental racism in determining the level of air pollution that individuals and communities face. One group used publicly-available data to compare San Diego neighborhoods in terms of their typical pollution burden (below).
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Mills High School
Runner-Up Campaign
Mills High School’s Innovations in Green Technology class created impactful campaigns to inspire the school community to take action on sustainability and air quality issues.
Kazuki’s campaign encouraged students to walk, bike, or carpool to school asking students to sign a pledge to do so at least twice per week (below). They were inspired to take action by the amount of traffic at the school and wanted to center their campaign on the local student body.
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Yessica’s inspiration stemmed from a personal experience. They created an educational campaign sharing their cousin's story whose breathing problems improved after installing an air purifier in their home (below).
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Burlingame High School
Runner-Up Campaign
Burlingame High School’s winning campaign taught others about greenhouse gasses through an interactive experience.
Looking Back
Students tackled challenges and spearheaded campaigns.
After learning about sustainability through research and digital tools, students planned a campaign to improve sustainability in their own communities. They transformed knowledge into action, emerging as sustainability leaders who implemented real change and inspired others to join their environmental causes! |
Students became sustainability specialists and won prizes.
Everyone who completed the challenge received our Sustainability Specialist Certificate. Students who best demonstrated their sustainability knowledge and launched a successful campaign won prizes to help them continue their sustainability efforts. |
This challenge was funded by a grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.