Get Started
Now that you’ve decided to take the Cool School Challenge, here are some tips to help assure your success!
Form a team
First you need a team to administer the Challenge at your school. Ideally a team will consist of:
- A Challenge Coach – such as a teacher
or administrator. The role of the Challenge
Coach is to train, support and guide students throughout the process.
Check out the Materials section
of this website for information about classroom activities, workshops
and other tools to help Coaches implement the program.
- Student Challenge Leaders. Student Challenge Leaders can be an entire class, or smaller group of motivated students (Earth Club, or other service organization, for example). Student Challenge Leaders will recruit classroom participation in the Challenge, create CO2 emission reduction plans for each classroom and, at the end of the Challenge, monitor, evaluate and summarize the school’s accomplishments.
Decide on your timeline
You should develop a realistic timeframe for implementing the Challenge. Here for simplicity, it’s been structured as a four-week program, with emissions savings amortized for one school year. You can certainly keep the Challenge running for a longer period of time!sample timeline
Notify teachers and administrators
To garner support and buy-in from teachers and administrators, let them know you want to start the Challenge at your school and that you want as much participation from them as possible. You can send a memo or e-mail, arrange to speak at a faculty meeting, etc.
sample email
Develop a participation strategy
Spend some time thinking about how to maximize participation in the Challenge. A lot of the actions we can take to protect the environment are fairly simple, such as turning off the lights! What are some ways you can motivate and inspire schoolmates to actively participate in the Challenge?
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