Cool the Earth school program tackles climate change

They did it for smoking. Now they’re doing it for pollution. Kids are confronting their parents’ destructive behavior and showing them how to live cool, in an earth-saving sort of way that is.

A new school program called Cool the Earth is teaching kids in kindergarten through grade 8 how and why it’s important to reduce their carbon emissions. It’s a free and adaptable extra-curricular program. Since launching in 2007 Cool the Earth has reached 59,654 students in 297 schools and Girl Scout troops across the U.S. and saved close to a billion pounds of heat-trapping carbon from being emitted.

Cool the Earth is a grassroots nonprofit based in Marin County, California that was created by Carleen and Jeff Cullen, two concerned parents eager to find practical ways to tackle climate change and encourage others to do the same.