Project Green Challenge Encourages Eco Teens

A sweet, endearing and elating voice comes through the phone and says, “No matter if you only sign on once and do one challenge, you’ll still be getting so much from the experience.” This is the voice of Judi Shils, the founder and director of Project Green Challenge. Project Green Challenge is a green initiative encouraging teens to go green and make their lifestyle more eco-friendly. The goal of Project Green is to bring attention to conscious living, informed consumption and the impact of environmental activism. Shils hopes that the Project Green Challenge will impact students’ lives across the world and help them make their campuses and communities more green. Already, teens are getting involved in the challenges. Project Green is drawing teens in with fun, empowering and interesting challenges that really make you take a step back and realize how you can be more environmentally aware. Juliette Mueller, one of our campus representatives for Project Green, touches on this subject by saying, “No matter how ‘green’ you think you are at the beginning of this challenge, you will end this challenge with tons of knowledge as to how you can be greener.”
You can tell that Project Green understands what being a teenager is like. From their fun, creative and colorful website design to the great pictures of friendly looking people, you can tell this is a project made for teens. An amazing part of Project Green is that the challenges relate to things that we actually care about. Not only does Project Green give you great ways to get involved and make a difference, but they also have some really incredible incentives. For daily challenges, a certain number of submissions will win the daily prizes. However, there are also high-value grand prizes, one of which is a 5,000 dollar college scholarship. If helping make the earth a better, cleaner and safer place to live wasn’t enough to convince you to hop on Project Green Challenge’s bandwagon, then that prize will definitely make you want to hustle over to the nearest computer and sign up. The prizes don’t stop at that; from a thousand-dollar room design to a head to toe eco-makeover, Project Green is offering prizes that actually appeal to us teenagers.
All the incentives have definitely worked; Project Green already has a huge list of schools involved in the movement. Schools all over the country are embracing a path to a greener lifestyle. Thankfully, the long list of high schools does include Berkeley High School. Students who are involved are already astonished at the changes Project Green is making to their lives. “It was eye-opening to learn that there are so many chemicals in my cosmetics that cause cancer and birth defects,” says Lucia Harley, a student participant. Another student participant, Nina Nakao, added onto Lucia’s enthusiasm by saying, “So far Project Green Challenge seems like it will be something I won’t lose interest in, and so far the challenges weren’t what I expected but are better because they are unexpected.”
It is not too late for you to get involved! You can sign up at Project Green Challenge’s website as a solo participant or you can get all your friends together and go green as a team. If you complete all your challenges, you can enter the challenge finals and be selected to participate in Green University, a two-day event in San Francisco where you will learn from eco-experts, share and present about your thirty-day challenge experience, and learn ways to encourage social action. Not only will Green University offer a great thought provoking opportunity, but you will also get to stay in the green dorms and attend green prom. At Green University, a challenge champion will be chosen and win an outstanding prize package and get the opportunity to work with Teens Turning Green and their partners.
So hop online and sign up! It’s easy, quick and definitely worth your time. You can check out cool green resources on Project Green Challenge’s website, read about eco-experts, view thirty days worth of eco-friendly outfits or read Project Green Challenge’s blog. You can also go up to one of our campus representatives, Jesse Gibson or Juliette Mueller, to get more information on how to get involved and make a change. Remember: the more people that get involved, the more we can change. Let’s stop just talking about how much we hate environmental problems and do something to fix them.