Waste-Free Snacks & Lunches - Students nationwide will participate in the largest school based waste-reduction program in history by simply pledging to carry their drinks, snacks and home packed lunches in reusable containers for the week. Students will weigh snack trash both before and during National Green Week 2010 to determine their trash savings. The combined totals will be tallied and posted on the GEF website on Earth Day 2010 (April 22).

- Energy Reduction Challenge - Students will audit their classrooms, schools and homes to find energy leaks and correct them in an effort to reduce energy consumption at school and at home.
- Lights-out Classrooms - Teachers are encouraged to turn off the lights, when sunlight is a viable option to teach by for at least one day during National Green Week 2010.
- Walk/Bike/Carpool Week - Students and their families will make a concerted effort to walk, bike and/or carpool for at least one day if not the entire week during National Green Week 2010.
- Idle Free Week - Principals will encourage all parents (who have to drive) and bus drivers to turn off their ignitions when wait time is longer than 20 seconds for at least one day if not the entire week during National Green Week 2010.

National Green Week 2010 will mobilize more than one million students at 2,000 schools and youth organizations from across the nation to participate in its environmental educational programs. This annual event is a replication of the award winning Fisher Elementary Green School Experiment, conducted in a small, suburban school in Walpole, Massachusetts in June 2008. The Fisher Experiment resulted in the students achieving a 70%+ waste reduction in classroom trash, new town-wide recycling programs, as well as behavioral changes for students and their families, faculty and school personnel. View the inspiring documentary of this program on the homepage of this site.

GEF provides all the educational content, activities and courses to align with its eco-challenges components. Schools and groups can choose to participate in these programs and lesson or choose their own. GEF's educational content includes green lessons and projects that are easily incorporated into science, math, language arts, social studies, and creative arts curricula.

Program Goals
The overall goal of National Green Week 2010 is to prove that by working together, students, parents and communities can institute personal and systemic environmentally-sound practices that will have measurable and sustainable impact on our environment, including waste reduction. Following are the specific objectives of the program:

1. Enlist students across the country to become green keepers and eliminate waste at their schools.
2. Provide ongoing green education curriculum to schools and students.
3. In one week alone, reduce the amount of waste produced by children in schools by more than a half a million pounds.
4. Initiate new and improved home and school based recycling programs nationwide.
5. Launch over 10,000 school gardens (indoor or outdoor).
6. Enlist over 500,000 students to take on the role of energy auditors at their schools and homes and implement effective improvements.

National Green Week 2010 will provide the following envionmental educational content and curriculum:

- Environmental educational activities, projects, games and exercises for Pre K-12 students. These educational supplementsare cross-referenced according to environmental subject (air and water quality, biodiversity, climate change, energy, school gardening, and waste/ pollution/recycling); academic disciplines (math, science, English and social studies), and grade level.
- An online interactive community enabling teachers and students to learn and share best practices with one another.
- Creative arts resources for after-school, summer, and home-based projects that further reinforce environmental concepts.

Online Community
Schools will participate in the largest environmental educational online community in history where educators and students can upload videos, photos, stories, and illustrations to document and share environmental learning's with one another.

National Green Week 2010 is a free program. Schools and groups are encouraged to take this opportunity, whether for the week, a day or an assignment to spend time with their students discussing environmental issues and specifically what they can do to make a difference. The GEF website will announce the impact of the combined efforts on behalf of all of the schools and green keepers. Please view the National Green Week 2010 start-up kit for all the details on how to participate in the program.

Healthy snacking is an important part of daily life. To visit GEF's healthy snacking page, click here!