Earth Day Project Ideas for Any Time of Year

• Plant a tree. Plant three!
• Write a vegetarian or vegan cookbook. Meat production accounts for millions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted in to the atmosphere every year. Imagine how much could be saved if everyone ate just one vegetarian meal per week! You can help by compiling a book of tasty recipes.
• Host a vegetarian dinner for your families or your community. Test out your cookbook recipe ideas!
• Plant a troop garden. Grow your own snacks for troop meetings or delicious produce for your local soup kitchen. Nothing tastes better than fresh-picked!
• Plan a Leave No Trace workshop for your troop or service unit or sponsor a workshop for your friends. Education is the surest route to protecting our planet! Click here for more information on our council’s Leave No Trace program or visit the LNT website, www.lnt.org, to find out about their Travelling Trainers Program.
• Meet The Greens! Visit the website pbskids.org/greens. Choose one of the fund and important “take action” projects they suggest.
• Take action at your school. Indentify wasteful use of electricity and water or take a close look at how your school employs the “3 Rs”: reduce, reuse, recycle. As a group, propose a solution to your principal or administrators.
• Visit a sustainable living community. Plan a field trip to a local sustainable living community to see what others are doing to help fight climate change. EcoVillage, located in Ithaca, NY, is a terrific example and welcomes visitors every day of the week. Use an idea or concept you learn to take action in your own community.
• Hold a shopping bag sewing bee. Gather friends and family at a community center. Have them bring a sewing machine and unwanted fabric articles. Make reusable shopping bags by recycling unwanted clothing or donated fabric.
• Remove “invasive species”. Investigate which invasive species are harming your community woodlands and wetlands. Can you do anything to help get rid of them? Learn how and take action!
• Plan a solidarity ride. A solidarity ride raises community awareness for an important cause. Earth Week is the perfect time to do it! Enlist the participation of teachers and community leaders. Identify a goal, form an organizing committee, plan your route, publicize the event, and ride!
• Host a Climate Change Round Table. What is your community’s plan or your school’s plan for fighting climate change? Can you agree on some community-wide solutions? What can everyone in your community do to help? Invite local business people, teachers, and town officials to participate in a discussion at your school or community center.
• Create a composting program for your community garden or at school. Where do your lunch leftovers go? How about the leaves you rake? Make some chemical-free fertilizer!
• Pick up trash. Choose a community park, a roadway, or a waterfront site that needs to be cleaned up. Recycle the items you find.

Has your troop come up with a unique Take-Action project of their own? If so, share it with others!

Don’t forget to Register your Take-Action Project!