WINNERS ANNOUNCED
During Spring 2024, high schools across California participated in the Earth Day Challenge, inspiring change in their communities by creating sustainability campaigns. The winning campaigns focused on improving local air and water quality, as well as reducing their schools’ environmental impact, and earned well-deserved prizes. Congratulations!
See the Winning Campaigns:
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🏆 Top Campaign: Mills High School
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Mills High School
Top Campaign (Bay Area)
Mills High School’s Innovations in Green Technology class, led by teacher Anthony DiLemme, carried out a variety of campaigns – to improve energy conservation, bike safety, air quality, and water conservation. The creativity, engagement, and impact of these student-run campaigns secured Mills the grand prize of this year’s Earth Day Challenge!
One group of students – Kazuki, Nagham, Sohan, and Nick – set out to raise awareness about energy conservation at school. To gather data on daily classroom energy use, students surveyed teachers and took watt measurements of their classroom TVs and computers. The students also calculated how much energy could be saved through using energy efficient techniques.
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The group wanted to share their survey findings and energy calculations, as well as energy conservation tips, with the entire school community. They created a series of educational posters and filmed an informational video. The campaign inspired a range of effective conservation practices on campus, encouraging students, teachers, and staff to be energy stewards.
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By implementing energy saving measures, we not only reduced our school’s environmental footprint, but also set an example for sustainable behavior that can inspire others in the community to adopt similar practices, contributing to a broader vision for sustainability.” Another group of Mills students – Mitchell, Carter, Mathew, Gavin, Timothy, and Terrance – led a campaign to increase local bike safety. The group surveyed their community, learning that people would feel more comfortable biking if they had educational resources about how to stay safe. The students worked together to create these resources, sharing them with the school and broader Mills community.
Congratulations to all students in the Green Technology class for their incredible sustainability campaigns!
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Burlingame High School
Runner-Up Campaign (Bay Area)
Burlingame High School’s Service Commission class, led by teacher Bethany Li, created an inspiring campaign promoting clean transportation and sustainable commutes school.
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The students created posters highlighting the harms of air pollution and highlighting more sustainable options, as well as sharing an educational video segment with their school community. They hosted a Clean Commute Day during which students, teachers, and staff biked, walked, or carpooled to school.
We aimed to inspire people in our community to take initiative and think about the ways they can make their lives more sustainable. We hope people will see how easy it is to make their lives and habits more sustainable." |
High Tech High International
Runner-Up Campaign (San Diego)
Students in High Tech High International's physics class once again developed an impressive campaign – this year, they focused on keeping plastic waste out of local waterways. Previous winners of the 2023 People and Planet Challenge, HTHI's physics class set out to make their school more sustainable by decreasing plastic use on campus.
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Creating an educational campaign composed of informative and beautiful posters, the students convinced school administration to replace single-use plastic forks in their school cafeteria with compostable wooden or bamboo alternatives. Their campaign successfully encouraged other students to make use of reusable utensils and secure less-harmful disposable options – efforts that will improve HTHI's environmental impact.
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Garfield High School
Runner-Up Campaign (San Diego)
Garfield High School's Biology class, led by teacher Camille Fowler, created campaigns for clean air and water after using the AirBeam 3 and Blue electronic devices, as well as CalEnviroScreen data. Using these tools, students learned that their community ranked high for asthma and impaired waterways, and were inspired to raise awareness and create a sustainability campaign.
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Students worked individually to create posters, videos, and artwork that educated their community about local air and water quality and promoted sustainable practices. Some students focused on encouraging people to take shorter showers, use reusable water bottles, support local farmers, or walk/bike to school, while other students used catchy slogans, such as, “There is no Planet B” to catch their classmates’ attention and inspire change.
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The Earth Day Challenge supported our vision for sustainability by engaging students and and making them think about pollutants in their community, how they affect their health, and the steps each person could take to improve the health of the planet and their communities." |
Congratulations to our 2024 Earth Day Challenge Winners!🌍🏆
About the Challenge
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Students tackled challenges and spearheaded campaigns.
After learning about sustainability issues 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! |
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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. |
Missed the Spring 2024 Earth Day Challenge?
Good News! You can still access the Earth Day Challenge materials and complete the challenge to receive a Sustainability Specialist Certificate. And be on the lookout for our People and Planet Challenge in Fall 2025!
Partners
This challenge is funded by grants from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Edison International®, and sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
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