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The Character Education Committee is bringing an innovative global warming program; Cool the Earth to our school.
Cool the Earth educates students and their families about global warming and inspires them to take action. Families learn how conserving home energy reduces carbon emissions. Its goal is to increase awareness about climate changes and to inspire actions by reinforcing the school community that “every action counts".
The program is now running in over 50 schools in the United Sates.
The program is introduced to the school with a Kick‐Off assembly performed by teachers, parents and students. Characters such as Koda the polar bear, Earth and Mother Nature act out scenarios about how human activities are contributing to raising levels of carbon dioxide, and giving the Earth a “fever” known as global warming. By the end of the play, all the kids are excited to get rid of the villain, Mr. Carbon, and save the polar bears.
ACTION COUPONS
The cornerstone of the program is the Action Coupon booklet. These coupons contain simple energy‐saving tips‐ easy steps families can take to fight global warming. Coupons show how many pounds of carbon are reduced by each action taken. Once the student and their family have taken an action listed on a coupon, they turn in the coupon and receive Cool the Earth Trading cards or Special Cards redeemable for prizes.
The Action Coupon booklet is handed out by the teacher to every student at the end of the kick‐off assembly, with a letter from the Principal announcing the global warming program, and send it home with the student. The Action Coupon booklets include 20 actions that can be taken at any time during the year. The action coupons will be collected at the main entrance of the school, on Fridays from 7:30am to 7:45am.
==FIND COUPON COLLECTION RULES HERE ==
INCENTIVES
Trading Cards: When a child turns in a coupon, he/she receives a Trading Card:
Prize Cards: When a child gets this card, he/she redeems it immediately to receive a prize such as a recycled pencil, a character button, or a rubber bracelet.
Character Cards: These are 9 character cards. With the cards the students can: Build a set by turning in coupons and trading with other kids. Play a game, once students have a full set, or at least enough cards to begin. They can play “Cranky Carbon,” just like Old Maid.
End of Program Raffle: This raffle is to be drawn from the action coupons turned in over the course of the program.
ACTION OF THE MONTH
Each Action of the Month involves an on‐campus activity and information to take home to parents. These fun and engaging activities keep families focused on taking actions while keeping the program fresh. These activities are:
- Update Your Lights
- Reusable Water Bottle
- No Waste Lunch
- Junk the Junk Mail
- Water Use = Energy
- Lighten Your Footprint
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
- Tire Pressure Check
TRACKING SUCCES
The Cool the Earth banner displays and sets a goal for how many actions we want to take in a year, based on the number of students, our goal is 2100 actions. The banner will be hanging in the assembly area during the play and after that in a high‐traffic area on campus.
The program is held by:
1. Parent volunteers: direct the program, help in the play at the kick‐off assembly, collect and tally coupons, support the program with Action of the Month activities.
2. Teacher liaison: support the program and act as an information conduit to other teachers and staff, helps suggesting and recruiting teachers to participate in the play at the kick‐off assembly, and supervising the student club.
3. Students Club: help with the kick‐off assembly, make posters to advertise Action of the Month activities and collect coupons.
We want to let the teachers know about the program before launching the program, their support will make the program more successful. Teacher notes will be provided containing information to be shared with their students.
PROGRESS UPDATES
The Team will be in charge of tallying the actions and entering them into the Cool the Earth website every month. For more information visit www.cooltheearth.org. For questions or comments contact asfmcoolingearth@yahoo.com
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