Join young people from around the country taking action for Earth Week on April 20-26!
About
Since Earth Day was founded in 1970, students have been on the forefront of change to protect our environment. Today, we face numerous environmental crises, from climate change, to air and water pollution, to the destruction of ecosystems critical to all life on Earth. That’s why we’re organizing events across the country to call for bold action to protect our environment and public health.
Youth Earth Week is a project of the Student PIRGs. For nearly 50 years we’ve helped students to get organized, mobilized and energized so they can continue to be on the cutting edge of positive change.
Resources
The Activist Toolkit
From recruitment to leadership development, to grassroots organizing, to working with the media, this Activist Toolkit provides the basic tools to run successful events and winning campaigns.
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Outreach Toolkit
Amplify your Earth Week events with social media tags, graphics, and sample posts; a sample recruitment email; and a sample “Register Your Event” email.
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Social Media Toolkit
Sample social media posts, hashtags, and graphics to amplify your Earth Week events.
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Media Toolkit
Sample media advisories, press statements, press releases and more to make sure your Earth Week event gets great media coverage!
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Letters-to-the-Editor Toolkit
Letters to the editor (LTEs) are a great way to get easy media coverage for your campaign. This toolkit contains a how to, tips and sample Earth Week LTEs to submit to your local or campus newspapers.
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From Data to Change: Brand Audit Toolkit
Since 2017, #breakfreefromplastic has been organizing brand audits to hold the top corporate plastic polluters accountable. This guide will help you maximize the impact from brand audit data and use it to create your own long-term campaigns to end plastic pollution.
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2024 Leadership Award Winners
CALPIRG at the University of California, Los Angeles
The UCLA chapter held a clean up at Santa Monica Beach to celebrate Earth Day. A team of 18 volunteers collected over 4,800 pieces of trash. In addition, they used the beach cleanup to build support for their campaign to ban plastic grocery bags in California and got a media hit in the Culver City Observer. Students found lots of plastic waste at the beach, including plastic straws, bottle caps, polystyrene foam, and of course, plastic bags. One student even found a bag with the word "reusable" still clearly visible, highlighting that these plastic bags are not being reused, or even recycled, and are instead polluting our environment. CALPIRG State Director Jenn Engstrom spoke at the event.
MASSPIRG at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
MASSPIRG at UMass Amherst held a clean up of the popular local swimming hole Puffers Pond and its surrounding trails. Fifteen students participated, including students from other campuses in the Five Colleges system in the area, and picked up more than ten bags of waste including many pieces of single-use plastic and even a Croc! The event made this popular gathering spot spotless for students, families, and fishers before the start of the popular summer season.
Florida PIRG at Eckerd College
Florida PIRG at Eckerd College teamed up with their friends at Eckerd Reduce Single-Use to do a cleanup of trash on campus. The team of 18 volunteers collected 64.5 pounds of trash and contributed to the ongoing research that Reduce Single Use is doing on plastic pollution in Tampa Bay.
Florida PIRG at the University of South Florida
Florida PIRG at the University of South Florida, Tampa held a beach cleanup in collaboration with other environmental student organizations. The team of ten volunteers completed 30 hours of service and collected several bags of trash.
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