The Town of Atherton is trying to help you interest and motivate your students to focus on the environment and what they need to do to improve how they treat it. We are hosting a fun and collaborative environmental competition that challenges students to come up with a project idea (their own or they can take suggestions) and put together a student team and sponsor and then create a display to present their idea to the community. If the community really likes their idea, they can win a prize. If they have a totally cool presentation, they can win a prize. And if their project idea is really good, they could even win project funding to help them execute it! This competition involves conceptual work and creative work but does not require that the student launch the program at this time (although they certainly could, if able to do so). Adult supervision, assistance and support is okay!

Teachers Can Sponsor As Many Student Projects as You Wish All student projects need a minimum of two students working together and at least one adult (preferrably over 25) to serve as their project sponsor, to assist them when they need help. Younger students can be led through a project that is integrated into a lesson unit by a teacher, so long as they participate in creating the display and completing the required information. Teachers can participate as actively as they wish to, to help the students with thinking through the challenges of that particular project. For a student project to qualify for the environmental competition, the student teams need to complete and submit two forms fully by their due dates and create a compelling visual presentation about their project which they will show at our GreenSTART Fair on April 13th. The program requirements are more fully explained at the "tools" link to the left.

We hope you will consider distributing information about this program to your students and assisting them with thinking about the types of projects they could undertake. We have a link with some ideas on the right but feel free to suggest some of your own to students. If they ask, we hope you will also consider serving as a sponsor for one or more projects.

As this is a new program (recently designed by the Atherton Environmental Programs Committee), if you have any suggestions, ideas, concerns or needs regarding this program, please let us hear from you! Also, consider joining our online email group which is for anyone who wants to participate in the discussion about this program.

All students in Atherton schools are eligible to participate in GreenSTART and compete in our environmental competition. Students may also participate even if they do not attend an Atherton schools, so long as they fulfill the other requirements, including presenting their project displays at our fair. Please see our program summary and Q&A for more program details. Schools with the most project registrations can win our School Participation Grand Prize, which is eligible to go to fund environmental programs, projects, teaching and curriculum development at the school.