Cool the Earth

Cool the Earth Inc. is a non-profit educational organization based in Northern California. The mission of Cool the Earth is to educate kids and their families about climate change and motivate them to take simple measurable actions at home to reduce their carbon emissions. Currently, the organization offers programming to over 100 elementary schools.

History

Cool the Earth was founded in 2007 by Marin County parents, Carleen and Jeff Cullen, in the North San Francisco Bay Area. The couple said that they were influenced by Al Gore's documentary on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.[1] Surprised by what they had learned, the Cullens held screenings of the film where parents from their community could view and discuss ways to fight climate changes. Despite their efforts, the Cullens realized that people were still slow to take action. Thus, Cool the Earth was established with other parent volunteers from their community to motivate people to make more eco-friendly choices. The program was first launched at Bacich Elementary School in Kentfield, California (the school that the Cullen's children attended at the time).[2] Carleen Cullen mentioned running Cool the Earth out of her garage with 10 employees and several teachers and parent volunteers who work across the 25 North San Francisco Bay Area elementary and middle schools.[3]

Since 2007, Cool the Earth has been responsible for motivating over 45,000 energy-saving actions to be taken by over 27,000 school children and family members—eliminating 37 million pounds of carbon from the atmosphere—with positive environmental benefits for the region.[4]

Method

The Cool the Earth flagship program was launched in 2007 and is now reaching over 95 schools, and over 60 aftercare centers, and Girl Scout troops in the Bay Area. The program has catalyzed over 80,000 energy-efficiency actions. CTEI offers a school-to-home program that is not curriculum-based.

Cool the Earth uses a child driven model to inspire families to conserve energy and resources. This model in which the family acts together out of concern for the dangers of global warming, has recently been cited by the first major "National Household Survey on Global Warming" as one of the most effective methods to create positive environmental change.[5] The program employs a method that engages all the children at school and gives them the tools to catalyze their parents so that the whole family reduces their carbon footprint. The program is built around community action. Children, parents, and teachers see that by working together, individual actions are meaningful.[6]

Kids who participate are learning about consumption habits, and parents are becoming engaged in the climate change crisis—similar to how kids brought home the message of recycling and “don’t smoke.”

The organization has established partnerships with The Bay Area Air Board, The Chabot Space & Science Center, Marin Community Foundation, Marin Conservation Corps, Strategic Energy Innovations, Marin Municipal Water District, Safe Routes to School, Al Gore’s The Climate Project.

Program

Currently available for free to any elementary school in the USA, the Cool the Earth program launches with a school-wide assembly featuring an age-appropriate play, which educates children about global warming and empowers them to take 20 low or no-cost actions to reduce their energy use at home.[7]

The 3-5 month program measures the actions the children and their families take from a coupon book which goes home with the kids, and celebrates the results on a visible banner at school. This program is available to any elementary school in the country at http://cooltheearth.org. The program has already motivated over 44,000 kids and their families to take over 80,000 actions to reduce their carbon emissions, eliminating 60 million pounds of global warming gases from the atmosphere.

Aimed at kindergartners 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.[8]

Awards

  • California Air Resources Board Excellence Award
  • Jefferson Award (awarded to Carleen Cullen for founding Cool the Earth)
  • Breathe California's Clean Air Award
  • Flora Foundation Award for best non-profit four-minute video[9]
  • MTC Award for Excellence in Transportation, October 2010

See also

References

  1. ↑ Moody, Shelah (September 7, 2008). "Carleen Cullen fights global warming". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  2. ↑ Cool the Earth. Cool the Earth, 2008. Web. 05 April 2010.
  3. ↑ Moody, Shelah (September 7, 2008). "Carleen Cullen fights global warming". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/05/LV2N12OA9A.DTL. Retrieved 16 March 2010.
  4. ↑ The View From The Bay. "Teach Your Kids to Go Green." ABC News, 04 June 2009. Web. 05 April 2010.
  5. ↑ A 2007 household survey by Porter Novelli Center for Excellence in Climate Change Communication at George Mason University of 13,000 Adults and Children found that when children and their parents agree that global warming poses a threat, and share knowledge about how they can combat it, the family engages in taking more action to reduce their carbon emissions. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-04-05. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
  6. ↑ Reference: Elk Grove Citizen - November 24, 2009 "Program teaches Foulks students ways to be Green"
    http://www.egcitizen.com/articles/2009/11/24/lifestyle
  7. ↑ Reference: Palisades Post Newspaper: - January 26, 2010 "Palisades Elementary Families Join Cool the Earth Program" http://www.palisadespost.com/lifestyles/content.php?id=5458
  8. ↑ California Schools Magazine, Spring 2010. "Class Acts: Cool the Earth. Environmental Education on the Cheap." http://67.152.95.5/NewsAndMedia/Publications/CASchoolsMagazine/2010/Spring/Departments/ClassAct_Cool.aspx%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
  9. ↑ xylocam (25 May 2010). "Cool the Earth: Climate Change Assembly Program" – via YouTube.
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