Programs

The Green Ambassador Program is truly an organic grass-roots program that was developed by students, for students, and for the benefit of the world that the students will inherit. Our strategy through all of our programs is to provide experiences for the Green Ambassadors to acquire knowledge and develop the skills that will not only help them in this program, but also provide them with real-world skills for personal, academic, and professional success The students take the issue, research and develop solutions, and socially market the solution to their peers and the community at-large. They gain empowerment by:

Service Learning Class
Green Ambassador Productions
Green Peer to Peer Trainings
Green Adventures
Mobile Green Embassy
Green Mentors
Completed Green Action Projects

Empowerment:

Empowerment means Youth identifying an issue, develop a solution, act to implement the solution, and educate others. Most importantly, through this process, young people empower themselves to make a difference and, in turn, empower others. Ultimately, this process grows a community of youth that are proactive, knowledgeable, and confident that they can make a difference.  Empowerment means:   
 

• Connection:  Students connect themselves to the natural systems to understand how the planet operates which encourages and inspires them to protect this planet.
• Education:  Students teach themselves and others.
• Networking: Students learn to interact with community members and global peers using conventional (phone, face-to-face) and cutting edge (myspace, IM)  modalities. 
• Leadership: Students gain the ability to motivate peers into action around a specific subject.
• Curriculum design: Students learn to design curriculum that can be used by others.
• Technology: Students learn to use technology as a valuable tool.
  • Film-making: How to make an educational film
  • Website design
  • Graphic design – brochures and marketing
    • Materials.  
• Event Organizing:  Students learn to plan, organize, and market a community event. 

 

Our Programs:

Service Learning Class

GA supervises a community based service/ learning in-action program that educates youth in providing solutions to the most critical environmental issues facing our communities. Students receive college credit from Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

Each training takes students through a service/ learning cycle of a particular environmental issue. The first 3 weeks are spent exploring the environmental issue through field studies. In weeks 4-6, students develop and evaluate proposed solutions to the problem including exploring current options and programs and either adding to or creating new solutions. In the 7th week, students participate in a “Community Action Day” where they roll up their sleeves and help to enact their proposed solution(s), with the help of community partners. In the 8th week, students prepare for a community presentation where they will address an audience about the issue and their implemented solution. In the last week, the students participate in a graduation ceremony where they officially become a “Green Ambassador” for their initiative.

Their work is not over at this point. They continue to serve as an Ambassadors at numerous community events and work with community partners to train new ambassadors at ECHS and other schools.

In addition to the Green Ambassadors, hundreds of elementary students from the Lawndale Elementary School District will participate in the project when the Ambassadors visit their classes to teach environmental lessons. The Ambassadors will also visit local high schools in Torrance, Redondo Beach, and Manhattan Beach to teach their peers and help students and teachers to launch Green Ambassador programs at their respective schools. The Green Ambassadors will also host a region-wide student-led conference where over twenty different high schools and middle schools will be represented.

The program is currently found at:

• Environmental Charter High School Programs
• Los Angeles Eco Academy Programs 
• New City Public Schools Programs 
• Bullis Charter School

 

Green Peer to Peer Training

Youth Peer to Peer Trainings are a collaboration of youth leaders from across the city and nation to inspire, create, and share solutions for a healthy planet.

“We are tired of the myths about inner-city kids and their apathy towards the environment! Young adults are creating their own stewardship model by teaching each other, pooling their resources, strengthening their community vision and inspiring people to change. Youth need to see that they are an influential and vital part of the community. The youth of Los Angeles are the next generation of leaders. If they are not included in the community when they are young, they may not stay in the community to be the leaders of the future.” (Sabina Ibarra, a youth participant in the, Green Ambassadors leadership clinic, and a student at Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, CA.)

What is unique about Green Ambassadors’ Los Angeles Youth Leadership Clinic is that it is youth-planned, youth-driven and youth-motivated. Youth are driven to improve their local environment.

 

Green Adventures 

Green Adventures is a cross culture and global exchange travel program where youth study solutions, create and share ideas, collaborate and exchange culture.

Every year the Green Ambassadors chooses a destination in the world where they can step out of their comfort zone and learn and experience another culture, while performing an ecological research project, learning about sustainability and bringing back all these information back to Los Angeles where they share and implement their experiences. For instance, in 2007 students went to the Pantanal, in Brazil where they worked with Earth WatchÕs scientist in their efforts to protect river otters and the surrounding ecosystem. This year weÕre going to Costa Rica with Costa Rican Adventures.

Current Green Adventure:  Costa Rica, July 2 - 9, 2008

With Costa Rican adventures, Green Ambassadors will complete personal investigations of sustainability.

• View Our Itinerary
• Support Us

Why are we going to Costa Rica?

Costa Rica is a working example of environmentalism in the world. They have preserved their forests and land in a remarkable way. We would like to learn from some of the most successful pemaculture farms or eco-villages in the country, learn where some of food comes from, and also study the effects of unsustainable farming on Costa Rica's ecosystem and its people.

What are the logistics of this trip?

We will be in Costa Rica from July 2nd to July 9th starting in San Jose and traveling to Punta Mona, an eco-village in the border between Panama and Costa Rica, and then making our way up towards the Arenal volcano.

Who is going?

Four paying chaperones, including a filmmaker documenting our trip, and 14 students from Environmental Charter High School (most of them pictured below).

Who is supporting us?

Ez Waterless Car Wash has kindly donated their product and time for our carwash.

Chico Bags and Ecousable stainless steel bottles have allowed us to sell their products as part of our fundraiser.

We still need your help.

Because all of our kids come from low income families, it has been a struggle to get all the funding for our trip. If you would like to sponsor one of our students or donate some money, please send a check to Environmental Charter High School, attention Sandra Valencia. Your deduction is completely tax deductible!

Past Green Adventure:  Brazil, April 2007

 

The Green Mobile Embassy

With expert assistance from Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Bring Your Own, and a grant from Patagonia, the GA will transform a trailer into a Green Mobile Embassy (GME), a vessel housing models of green solutions. The GME will serve to teach students throughout the region about pressing environmental problems and what they can do to be part of the solution.

The GME will help promote environmental awareness by creating a tactile, museum-like environment, a mobile classroom for environmental change. It will feature both a multi-media station and hands-on learning stations on the following topics: plastics, bio-diesel, bio-plastic, solar power, and organic foods. It will be used as the showcase vehicle for Green Ambassador to meet, share, and demonstrate solutions for our Global Climate Crisis.

 

Green Mentors

The Green Ambassadors program also identifies and enlists Green Mentors who are of college age or above. These Mentors work with the Green Ambassadors to support them in their learning of environmental issues as well as solutions to these issues. Green mentors are benefited by developing their interpersonal skills (empowerment, networking, and enrollment), knowledge (environmental and scientific), and ecological values (biodiversity and interconnectedness). Green Mentors assist the Green Ambassadors to focus on specific issues where students can create sociall awareness and measurable change.

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