Scouting for the 21st Century - Green Actioneers

Although 72% of carbon in the atmosphere comes from actions by families and individuals, almost all the focus to date has been on industry, business and government.  Our program changes that.  

In the USA there are 110,000 elementary or middle schools serving over 40,000,000 families.  We will give free books in digital form to all of them.

Because our book is in English and Spanish it will be applicable in Latin America as well, adding tens of millions more families. 

Our chart on the wall in every school will be like a merit badge sash in scouting inspiring friendly competition between families to see who can put up the most post-it notes on the wall.  

Here is a link to the entire 246 page book.

We will be undertaking the following in the next year:

• Get celebrities to endorse the book and program
• Get schools to start programs in many states
• Get us onto podcasts and onto earned national media 
• Get QR codes from companies whose products are listed in the book so schools can get rebates when families make purchases
• Help to rebuild our website so families have a place they can post their own videos bragging about their accomplishments
• Get in touch with environmental foundations to see if they want to put a free Ad in the book in exchange for telling their membership about us
• Get help to create social media posts on Green Actioneers and monitor our social media.
• Get help to create an e-mail marketing system using Constant Contact.
• Get help to digitize the chart on the wall so we can compare families, classrooms, etc. by assigning a "score" to every action
• Help us find funding for the Green Actioneers Program from foundations, businesses, Community Foundations, or a Family Foundation that wants to be known for this effort.  
• Help us find a platform (Nickelodeon, Disney, PBS?) to turn our book into an animated family series of “hero’s journey” stories with the kids as the heroes.
• Help me to get on some TED organizer's calendar to deliver a TEDx talk about the Green Actioneers program within the next year

Goal is to start a Worldwide Green Actioneers Movement using our book like a Boy or Girl Scout handbook.  Anyone can become a Green Actioneer regardless of age, gender, or belief system and there is no central organization, just locally organized “branches” of one big green tree. 

We’ll meet weekly on Zoom to discuss the project, and to train presenters who might be high school or college students or retirees, and to recruit new schools.  We'll create breakout rooms where attendees can inspire or work with each other by geography or school type.  We'll have a special program for the vast homeschool population.

Each school (or other organization) holds family night, like Scholastic Books Book Fair but with only our book. Families go through the book in a gamified manner, and then take it home with them in digital form for free.  Of course they can also buy a print book.

Every time a family takes an action described in the book their kids can put up sticky notes on a chart in the hallway which serves as the motor for the program. 

The program can help raise money for the school with book sales and with rebates from vendors whose products will be promoted using QR codes in the book.

So far discussions about climate have been scary. We have no “trigger words” or phrases like “Global Warming” in the book.  It is ecumenical.

It’s a coloring book with games, puzzles and 120 environmental quotes from notable people.  There are two spacemen, Kandu and Kantdu from MOUGA – Make Our Universe Green Again – and they’ve come to Earth to check on us. We'll soon create an instructional video telling organizers, like “Green-hearted” PTA Moms or excited college students how to start and run programs in their local schools. 

Families everywhere are "underserved" because they do not know 1. that they are part of the problem; 2. that they can be part of the solution; 3. What to do.

All families will benefit from this program.  Families who attend "Green Actioneers Family Night" will bring home a digital or print copy of the book to browse together.  It does not matter if they believe that the climate is changing, or not, and it does not matter if they know humans are responsible, or not.

If Dad is a hunter, he'll have more game to shoot.  If he's a fisherman, he'll be able to eat his catch.  If he works outside, there will be more shade, and if he is a farmer, he'll have healthier soil.

Every participating family will save energy, water and money and this program can easily serve as a bridge to further understanding of the current dilemma, or not.

Extended family members, aunts and uncles, grandparents, will get involved to humor their nieces and nephews and grandchildren.

Our team so far includes over 60 undergraduate interns from University of Central Florida and their professor, Dr. Richard Plate, who helped research the book.  They are now dispersed around the USA and would love to help with the next step.  I also bring to the table my 4,000 LinkedIn friends and a similar number on Facebook.  I have a personal list of friends in my address book numbering over 6,000 contact in my address book, most of whom are sympathetic

This program is the natural result of work I have undertaken since 1976 when I started visiting elementary and middle schools with a program called "Juggling for Success."  What I developed in that program over 30 years was a system that worked to get students, teachers, administrators and parents excited and involved.  With that program I personally visited over 2,000 schools in 46 states and 6 countries and with the help of over 50 surrogates we visited schools in 12 countries and I sold over 1,000,000 copies of my three books, The Joy of Juggling, The Complete Juggler and Juggling from Start to Star.  I built a business called "Jugglebug" and sold it for just over $1,000,000 to Sportime in 1996.  I was recipient in 1991 of the first Excellence in Education Award of the International Jugglers Association. 

In 2007 I got trained by Al Gore to deliver his scary slide show, but since I work in elementary and middle schools I had to create a program that was acceptable to schools so I created "Climate Change is Elementary."  It was modeled on Juggling for Success and was enormously successful.  I delivered that program in schools in NY, NJ, CT, MA, MD, CO, NM and AZ but could NOT get any schools in Florida (my home state) to consider the program.

In 2015 I won First Place award in 2014 MIT Climate CoLab Youth Action Contest for a previous version of this proposal, which uses the same flow of the day and the same general structure of the previous two programs.  For instance in my juggling program we put a chart on the wall in the hallway or gym of each school and whenever kids advanced in their juggling skills they got to sign the chart.  Kids would do anything to get their name up there again and again. Here is a graphic from one of my books showing that.

So with all this experience and the help of over 60 undergraduate interns at University of Central Florida I have created a new program with all the beneficial features of the previous programs and the same "flow of the day" and we will use a chart on the wall as the motor for the current program.

In the 2023-24 school year I spoke at and exhibited at the Texas, Florida and California PTA conventions and have a database of over 600 "green-hearted" PTA leaders who want programs. We presented only three programs in three Florida schools (on the down-low with no video), all designed do test the concepts and make adjustments.  The current version of the book and the resultant "movement" is designed to take advantage of everything learned from 1976 until today.  I would venture to say that there is no other person on the Planet who could have designed and tested this program.  As you can see it is multigenerational since my coauthors are all college students and the population we aim to serve is elementary and middle school students and their parents and other relatives.

We did sell books in the test schools and broke even in doing so, but we did not make money because it was designed as a small local test and "proof of concept."  By Fall 2024 when we rollout the program we will be profitable in each school although we give a free digital download of the book to every family, whether they come to Family Night or not.

Here is the list from our plans of the ways we hope to use outside resources to make this program viable over the next year or so.

• Get celebrities to endorse the book and program (Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Dolly Parton, Jane Goodall?)
• Get elementary and middle schools to start programs in many states
• Get us onto podcasts and onto earned national media 
• Get QR codes from companies whose products are listed in the book 
• Rebuild our website so families have a place they can post their videos 
• Get in touch with environmental foundations to put an Ad in the book 
• Get help to create social media posts and monitor our social media.
• Get help to create an e-mail marketing system using Constant Contact.
• Get help to digitize the chart on the wall so we can compare families, classrooms, etc.
• Get help to find funding for the Green Actioneers Program from foundations, businesses, Community Foundations, or a Family Foundation that wants to be known for this effort.  
• And here is a BHAG or stretch goal - Get help us find a platform (Nickelodeon, Disney, PBS?) to turn our book into an animated family series of “hero’s journey” stories with the kids as the heroes.
• And help me to get on some TED organizer's calendar to deliver a TEDx talk within the next year

Because almost everyone else is focused on actions by government and industry or on technological solutions, this very simple and proven approach has been sitting waiting for us to come along.  If you think about past solutions to social problems that involved outside programs visiting schools we have the Drug Awareness (DARE-type) programs, Life Skills Training, Bullying prevention like "Second Step," "Character Counts," MindUp, Turnaround Arts, Let's Move! and many others.  Our program fits that slot perfectly.

By bringing the message to schools and households we will bring "green" vendors in direct contact with educational systems and support networks like PTA, which will benefit financially from the messaging and marketing that they provide.  The market for solar panels for instance now requires a family to get a phone call from a salesperson who "is in the neighborhood."  Under our system that rebate or bonus of several hundred dollars will go to the PTA or the school, not to a telemarketer. 

Our goal is to get families to "go green."

We get kids and parents excited about saving energy, water and money.

There are over 100 specific products in the "Green Actioneers Family Action Guide" that families can either purchase or adopt for free.

This will reduce family expenses and could also earn discounts for "green" purchases or rebates for their schools.

The chart on the wall in every school will be the motor for the ongoing program and it is visually exciting and marvelously newsworthy, which will give us secondary publicity.

A beauty of this program is that it does not require any hierarchy as you find in scouting, because every club or troop is a separate entity directed by the book (which they can get for free in digital form) and reinforced by social media.

We will create a digital equivalency for every action in the book so that in addition to "PostIt" notes on the chart in the hallway of the school there will be a quantification of the work of each family, classroom, grade level, school, district, and state.  Then these units can compete with one another (in a friendly manner) and schools or districts can be encouraged to give out awards to individuals, families, schools, etc. based on measured performance.

Specific indicators might include: number of families who adopt solar, or buy EVs, or start recycling, or give up meat, or take any other actions.  These can then be quantified and compared.

Schools, classrooms and districts can establish goals for families to attain and pass out rewards based on accomplishment.  Like the existing "Green Schools" movement, but for "Green Households."

This can all be accomplished by an app that can be created under this program.

Our project involves at least the following technological applications:

Our first technological application is that families can download and use the digital version of our manuscript free of charge, which could not have been feasible even a decade ago, because they would have needed to buy a print book.

The next application of technology will be the creation of a digital equivalent to the chart on the wall in every school, assigning a value to every action and every postIt note that is stuck up there.  Then using those data to let everyone know how well they are doing by reporting back to families, classrooms, schools and districts the cumulative effect of their "green actions."

Another application of technology will be the use of QR codes from the book by families when they make purchases of products and services and the calculation and payment of rebates to schools based on family purchases or actions.

A further technological application will be the system by which families learn about how they can implement the program and how they can work together using the very recent developments in communication like Zoom, and in determining their impact, like ChatGPT, and in spreading the word about their accomplishments by social media and by posting their own videos on our website. None of these technologies were available a decade ago. 

Certainly appearance on media, including podcasts, blogs and even some earned media, like streaming TV, counts as a use of technology that would have been impossible just a decade ago. Even a massive e-mail campaign fueled by a series of funnels is a new technological undertaking that is just now emerging.

When we find a platform like Nickelodeon, Disney, or PBS Kids that agrees to turn our book into an animated family series of “hero’s journey” stories with the kids as the heroes we will be using the newest and most exciting technology for creating images and stories and bringing them to the public.

Finally, many of the products promoted in the book, like EVs and solar panels use latest technology.

Our team includes over 60 University of Central Florida undergraduate interns plus their professor, Dr. Richard Plate and one full time staff person, Dave Finnigan.

I started working on this program in January 2007 after being trained by Al Gore to present his slide show.  Then I presented a program called "Climate Change is Elementary" modeled on a previous program I had delivered in over 2,000 schools in 46 states entitled "Juggling for Success."  The current program capitalizes on the lessons learned in those two previous programs.

Our team is entirely made up of students at University of Central Florida who are studying Sustainability, and who volunteer to be interns.  We have no control over their gender or ethnicity, but if you look at the photos included above you will see diversity.

1. Our program provides savings to families when they use our book to make purchases of energy and water saving products and services.  Every family gets a free digital copy of the Green Actioneers Family Action Guide, but many may decide to buy a print copy for $20.  If the PTA at the school sells them the book the PTA makes a few dollars on each book sold and so do we.

2. Once we get the program set up vendors of products and services touted in our book will use the QR codes to give discounts to families and rebates to schools for purchases by families.  We will benefit by eventually getting commissions on these sales, but that will not kick in immediately, first we want to prove the concept to the vendors and the schools.

3. Some schools may decide to use our suggested program to raise money to buy a book for every family in the school.  This graphic from the book suggests how that might work.

Book sales alone should be sufficient to pay for the program, but we can have the following sources of income as well:

1. Payment from the PTA of the school to our presenters from the "Edutainment" budget of the school.

2. Payment to Green Actioneers from sponsors who will put ads in the book.

3. Rebates from those vendors based on purchases by families that use the QR codes in the book.

4. Potentially grants from foundations, businesses, Community Foundations, or a Family Foundation that wants to be known for this effort.