Student Green Teams

A Student Green Team is a student group, class, community service club, science club, or other student organization. Green Teams takes on a project to reduce waste and conserve natural resources. Teams can be any size and may be part of an existing club or class. Green Teams offer leadership opportunities and empower students to act on issues that are important to them.

Green Team resources

• Guide for starting and maintaining a Green Team
• Sample Green Team application form
• Sample Green Team membership cards
• Sample meeting agendas
• Customizable batch of 6 certificates to celebrate accomplishments

Project ideas

Ongoing projects

• Check unoccupied classrooms to make sure lights are turned off. Follow other routine energy conservation practices using the energy conservation classroom checklist.
• Monitor lunch recycling and waste disposal stations. By monitoring, Green Team members help their fellow students learn how to properly sort materials.
• Assign 2 student monitors to each recycling and waste station.
• Rotate the monitoring responsibility between students, classes, or grade levels

Weekly/monthly projects

• Communicate about waste reduction, recycling, energy conservation, water conservation, and other conservation practices. Make announcements over the PA system, in the cafeteria, at assemblies, in newsletters, or on bulletin boards. Include information about conservation from our Benchmark pages.
• Promote waste-free lunches.
• Visit the Food Waste Reduction and Waste Reduction Benchmark pages for resources
• Waste volume can be tracked by lunch period, class, or grade level to encourage positive competition
• Identify recycling contamination such as liquids, straws, and other materials not accepted in the school recycling bins. Create an announcement or other type of communication to educate students and staff about how to improve recycling.
• Host a school supply swap day

Semi-Annual/Annual Projects

• Organize an Earth Day (or Earth Week) celebration.
• Assess waste, energy or water use, or modes of transportation to and from school. Broadcast conclusions to the school community via the website, announcements, staff meetings, or newsletters.
• Students can use science and math skills to determine how much waste is being generated and what percentage is sorted into recycling and food scrap bins. Ask your program representative for guidance.  
• Students can use communication skills to give kudos for correct sorting, reduced waste, and guide their fellow students on improvements.  
• Create a short video on how to volunteer to monitor waste sorting stations.

Elementary School Green Teams - project examples

In 2023-24, students on the Green Team at McMicken Heights Elementary School in Highline School District focused on trash around their school. They counted how many pieces of trash they collected. They made posters and announcements about trash and what to do when it's found.

The Green Team at Rosa Parks Elementary School in Lake Washington School District made posters about recycling, compost and trash during the 2023-24 school year. They also monitored the disposal station during lunch and helped students sort. They made signs for each class reminding them to switch off lights when leaving the room. For Earth Week, the Green Team organized several events. This included a walk, bike, or carpool day, a waste-free lunch day, a litter walk, an upcycled art competition, and a planting seeds activity.

At Sawyer Woods Elementary School in Kent School District, student team members took turns as cafeteria monitors. They ensured students sorted recyclables and garbage correctly. Students also organized a plastic waste booth at a STEM learning night. Participants learned about plastic waste in oceans and practiced sorting recyclables and garbage. The team also made bird feeders from reused plastic bottles and paper tubes.

The Green Team at Nautilus K-8 School in Federal Way Public Schools created paper reuse boxes.  They placed the boxes in each classroom to encourage reuse of paper with one side still blank. The students also created a paper reuse box for the staff workroom.

At Highland Terrace Elementary School in Shoreline School District, 20 students from grades 3-5 participated in the Green Team in 2022-23. Students used stickers to label recycling and trash bins. They also made weekly lunch announcements to promote waste reduction and led quizzes on reducing food waste. The quiz information was shared in the school newsletter for family members.

Secondary School Green Teams - project examples

The Green Team at Maple View Middle School in the Tahoma School District ran a battery recycling program in 2023-24. They posted digital ads encouraging students to bring their dead batteries to school for recycling. They placed collected boxes in the office and the library.

The Environmental Enthusiasts Club at Eastside Preparatory School in Kirkland educated their community on sustainability issues. They hosted several middle school assemblies on food waste reduction and removing plastic utensils from the cafeteria. They also shared info on their eco-brick project, created a climate change rap, and updated the cafeteria's waste signs.

In 2022-23, Green Team members at McKnight Middle School in Renton School District helped reduce waste. They created posters for their cafeteria waste bins and monitored sorting during lunch. Students also checked for leaks in the bathroom and classroom faucets. Team members also created videos about water quality, recycling, and plastic pollution to show during homeroom classes.

In the 2022-23 school year, the student Environmental Club at Raisbeck Aviation High School in Highline Public Schools created posters with tips on sustainable gift giving for the holidays. The club used its Instagram page to educate students about environmental practices. At a fundraising event for their club, members sold reusable tote bags.

Khalsa Gurmat School in Federal Way formed a student Green Team that learned about resource conservation practices. They led presentations to their school community. Their major project was organizing the collection of recyclable and compostable materials at the annual Vaisakhi celebration.  Almost 6000 people attended the event. Students and volunteers sorted all the event waste into recycling and compost.

The Green Team at Skyline High School in Issaquah School District worked with Cedar Grove Composting to improve waste sorting in the cafeteria. They also set up a collection for paper towels in the restrooms. Collected paper towels were combined with other compostable materials and food scraps for composting at Cedar Grove’s facility. The team and ASB created an educational video about reducing waste, recycling, and composting.