Water Planet Challengesecondary

Water Planet Challenge

EarthEcho International's Water Planet Challenge is an unprecedented national call-to-action that engages middle and high school youth to bring about global change by taking action in their communities through service-learning projects. The Challenge provides revolutionary science-based environmental education materials, tools, and resources to empower youth to take action to restore and protect our water planet.

Water is the single most important substance on the planet—it is the one element that connects each and every being on earth to one another, from human consumption to energy production. It is also expected to be the cause of the greatest crises of our century.

Today's youth are more engaged and excited about environmental issues than any ever before, however there are few unified and accessible resources and tools to help them take action and measure their impact in a significant manner. In other words, we have an unparalleled team primed and ready to go without a proper game plan to take action. Indeed, environment is one of the three most requested service-learning opportunities by teens, yet a quick scan of any aggregator sites of this type of content shows very little that exists on a national level at high quality.

The Water Planet Challenge's core partners make this a powerful initiative that can take place now, not at some point in the distant future:

CBK Associates has produced seminal education materials utilized by the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse and books that set the standard for being easy to use, practical, and providing teachers and youth what they need to successfully improve their communities.

Discovery Education provides engaging digital resources to schools and homes with the goal of making educators more effective, increasing student achievement, and connecting classrooms and families to a world of learning. Discovery Education's digital services are used by over 1 million teachers and reach 35 million students.

Validifi Technologies connects youth with organizations serving the needs of their communities and validates their participation. This online network allows students to post user-generated content to share stories and ideas, form online volunteer groups, invite friends to join events, communicate more efficiently and effectively with other student groups, track volunteering activity in their schools, generate and submit a Certified Volunteer Resume, and even create new volunteer opportunities in their communities. They will develop technology to validate participation and track the collective impact of the Challenge. This resource will aid educators with the necessary tools and support center to implement quality service and service-learning programs around critical ocean and water issues.

GenerationON (formerly Children for Children and HandsOn Network) brings together the world's largest network of volunteer action centers with a premier youth service provider to create a Youth Action Network (YAN) designed to reach all children in their schools and communities and to bring them the opportunities, resources, and life-changing benefits of service. They will develop, design and disseminate service-learning curriculum for students and disseminate it through their national network of affiliates and Mayor Bloomberg's Service in Schools initiative in New York via online, CD ROMs, and print.

Challenge Components:

The Water Planet Challenge consists of two main parts:

The Challenge's Online Knowledge Center will be powered by Discovery Education and will provide, for the first time ever, water and ocean-related curriculum and multimedia tools for FREE to students and educators. Discovery Education is the #1 provider of broadband-delivered multimedia education content to US schools. With a presence in over 60% of US schools, they reach over 25 million middle and high school students with ocean and water-related interactive curriculum enhancement materials, which are aligned to state and national education standards and incorporate the rigorous Ocean Literacy standards developed in coordination with NOAA. These materials are powerful classroom tools that incorporate robust video content, assignment starters, worksheets, and an interactive map demonstrating how US waterways—even landlocked areas—affect our Oceans. The Knowledge Center will incorporate STEM education in its offerings to educators and students. Our other partners providing resources for STEM include National Youth Leadership Council and Youth Service America.

The Challenge's Service Learning Content Hub provides service-learning lesson plans and content developed by the premier experts in service-learning— Youth HandsOn Network and CBK Associates. A research team from Harvard University will vet the best contemporary environmental science. The content is delivered through a process that leads youth, often with guidance from an educator, through the research-based Five Stages of Service Learning. Service-learning is a proven education strategy that integrates classroom academics with social action to enrich the learning experience, embed civic responsibility and strengthen communities. It is utilized and in many cases mandated in schools across the country and around the world.

Technology
The entire website will be powered by a new technology that allows participating students and teachers to track their united efforts along common metrics, so that school, district, city-wide, and state participation is documented and available as validated data.

Distribution
The Water Planet Challenge distribution strategy is three-pronged, promoting to schools, teachers, and students.

The primary in-school distribution partner is Discovery Education, which will promote the Challenge immediately to 60% of US schools. Additional partners will promote to varied outlets with targeted information to inform schools of the availability and value of this program from the initial launch with continuous incentives and reminders to keep visiting the website to review the advancements and valued resources.

A benefit of partnering with Discovery Education is the ability to leverage a comprehensive slate of educator touch points, as well as Discovery's world-class press and PR expertise, relationships and manpower to millions of educators and students throughout the United States. Under normal circumstances it's very difficult to get a stand-alone project or program into a school. It can take months — if not years — to get materials approved for use in a school system. That's why our unique partnership with Discovery Education is so significant and critical to our program's success. In addition, educators continue to seek professional development through national associations that cater to their interests, such as these Challenge partners: National Association of Secondary School Principals, NEA, National Middle School Association, and Youth HandsOn Network.

Challenge partnering organizations that work directly with students to encourage service and actively engage students in the civic and political life of their communities include: Campus Compact, City Year, Youth HandsOn Network, and Youth Service America.

Incentives
Young people will have additional incentives to participate:

  • Planet Green will feature exemplary projects on air and online;
  • Philippe Cousteau and Planet Green will invite students who create outstanding projects to join them on an expedition;
  • Multiple granting institutions—including Usher's New Look Foundation and The National Education Association Foundation—will provide resources and mini-grants to support the implementation of student-designed projects, as well as additional grants for educators.

EarthEcho International has assembled an unprecedented group of partners to develop, promote, and distribute the Water Planet Challenge: