Frequently Asked Questions

Start the Challenge whenever it works for you! We want you to get involved in whatever way you can, whether it be for the whole school year or a unit, and we hope that your New Actions can become habits in your everyday life. At year-end, teachers will be asked to complete a reflection form to help us track collective impacts.

The Green Classroom Challenge is meant to be an easier way for teachers, classrooms, students, and schools to get recognition for their green habits on the classroom level. We hope that Green Classrooms can be a stepping stone or work in tandem with full Green School Certification!

It can be hard to communicate complex issues to young students, and we recommend tailoring your approach to the challenge around your classroom-specific needs. You could choose the actions for your students, you could work with a smaller list of ‘mild’ actions, or even create your own 5 actions that work best for your students! 

We want everyone to be involved. We hope you can commit to 5 New Actions for as long as possible, but we also recognize how much you do as teachers and we want to accommodate everyone. If you need to approach the challenge differently, that’s totally fine! Any amount of change can make a big difference and we want to encourage everyone to do what they can. Please feel free to reach out directly at cjarvis@santacruzcoe.org if you have any questions on the implementation of the Challenge.