2024

Granted $5,000 for The New Earth Rangers School Assembly: Re-imagining Environmental Education in Ontario

Project objectives:

The School Assembly Program is our most effective tool at driving membership, and results in kids taking real action in their community. Our data shows that membership increases by an average of 15-25% in communities where we have visited two or more schools in the last six months, compared to 1.5% in areas we have not visited. Membership is free, and upon signing up, children receive their very own personalized membership card in the mail. Now official members of the Earth Rangers community, kids engage on our platform—the Earth Rangers App—which provides a variety of learning resources (like blog articles, trivia, and the Earth Rangers Podcast) and impactful activities that show kids how to be “animal-saving heroes” by being environmental leaders in their households and communities. They can accept real-world Missions and Challenges developed specifically for Ontario families such as creating pollinator habitat, leading litter clean-ups, providing wildlife habitat in their backyards, discovering biodiversity in their neighborhoods, and much more. In 2023 alone, Earth Rangers members in Ontario reported completing over 42,000 environmental Missions.

Teachers are also provided with follow-up opportunities after each School Assembly, including related resources on our educator website, Homeroom. This platform provides free environmental education resources that are curriculum-linked, including classroom and outdoor activities for K-6 teachers, an educator e-newsletter, and our turnkey Clubs program for student or community groups.

Earth Rangers programs are also proven to provide long-term benefits to the children. Research conducted in 2023 with Ipsos indicated that, compared to non-members, kids who participate in our programs:

• Feel more empowered to act on environmental issues (78% vs. 54% for non-members)
• Feel more likely to be capable of making a positive difference (88% vs. 72%)
• Report that being an Earth Ranger makes them feel happy and hopeful

Remarkably, the research also found that these positive impacts extended to adults, with parents of our members also feeling significantly more empowered to act on environmental issues (60% vs. 43% for parents of non-members).