World Habitat Day is a UN-recognized observance day celebrated on the first Monday of October to encourage individuals across the globe to reflect on our rapidly urbanizing world, and understand our shared responsibility to the habitats we call home. In honor of this year’s theme – “Engaging youth to create a better urban future” – we will be highlighting ten incredible teams of youth change-makers who have stepped up as leaders in habitat protection and restoration in their communities. 

The OurEcho Challenge is an annual youth STEM competition that empowers youth (ages 13 to 16) across the United States of America and the United Kingdom to level-up their understanding of biodiversity. Teams that identify threats to local ecosystems and propose solutions to help preserve, protect, or repair those natural resources have the chance to win a grant to turn their proposal into a reality. 

Over the four years that EarthEcho has facilitated this competition, we’ve seen some absolutely incredible projects take shape. And the most amazing part? They don’t end after year one! Many of our grant winners, and even some of our running-up finalists have continued to implement their projects year over year, expanding both their reach and their impact. We are proud to report that this year, OurEcho Challenge teams have restored over 255 square meters of habitat, removed over 3,000 pounds of trash and 283 invasive species, and expanded their reach to directly impact over 21,000 students and community members. 

Meet the teams! 

Hailing from Le Jardin Academy in Kailua, Hawai’i, Team Pono Popoki Project is striving to humanely decrease the population of free roaming cats through TNRM (Trap-Neuter-Return-Monitor) and adoption, and to spread awareness as well as protect the biodiversity of our native and endemic ecosystems. Over this past school year they have sterilized 70 cats, reunited 2 lost cats with their families, provided medical care to 13 cats, rehomed 16 cats off the landscape, and served 19,324 meals to their school’s cat community. Based on commonly accepted cat reproduction rates, they can confidently say that their efforts have prohibited over 400 cats from entering the ecosystem over the next year. 

Team Bio Hazard, located in Berkshire, England, is committed to establishing an onsite greenhouse at the Reading School to ensure that there are easy-to-use herbs for their school’s kitchen. Additionally, they’re working to raise awareness about biodiversity among their peers, and encourage their school to eliminate plastic disposable cutlery. This year, they bought the greenhouse and plants, and are waiting eagerly for the automatic watering system, which should arrive soon. 

Team Fungi Frogs from the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley School District in Longmont, Colorado, are working with local partners to protect northern leopard frogs from diseases (such as chytrid fungus and ranavirus) by raising hatchlings in-house and then releasing them back into their natural habitat when ready. In 2023, they released 252 tadpoles and this year they released about 950 tadpoles, which significantly increased the species’ local biodiversity

At the Thomas Aveling School in Rochester, Kent, England, Team TA SREWS are on a mission to increase biodiversity in the Medway area and create more awareness of the importance of animal habitats. This past year, they’ve focused their attention on conducting workshops with primary school children and scout groups to teach about the importance of preserving animal habitats and supporting local wildlife. They taught their community members how to make bug hotels, hedgehog homes, and bird houses using recyclable materials found at home that are not harmful to the environment, as well as emphasized the importance of preserving verges and meadow areas for wildlife.

Residing in Nicholasville, Kentucky, Team Nocturnal Natives from West Jessamine High School are supporting endangered bat species in Jessamine County. This year, they’ve built eight rocket bat boxes and installed six of them in advantageous locations. They’ve also been busy planting native trees and shrubs around the boxes to make them safe and enticing bat homes. 

Team Falinge from Falinge Park High School in Lancashire, England are dedicated to increasing community awareness about the importance of moss, as well as replenishing critical species to improve the biodiversity in their local area. So far, they’ve propagated seven trays of moss, led educational sessions throughout their school to teach others about the important role it plays in ecosystems, and continuously worked to increase their own knowledge and understandings about the nuances of biodiversity. 

At Love A Sea Turtle in Greenville, North Carolina, Team Environmental Droners is implementing drone technology to help track down concentrated areas of pollution in order to deploy cleanup crews. With their efforts, they are also striving to raise environmental awareness, reduce the amount of plastic pollution, teach and mentor youth, and increase biodiversity in their communities. In their original project proposal from over three years ago, they stated, "the problem we are trying to solve is reducing the amount of trash in our cities and coastal areas...We will be active members in our community and will fight the single-use plastic pollution crisis." However, with the help of their mentors and partners, this team met and exceeded those goals and have now adopted new, farther-reaching ambitions. The team has now begun hosting the SPOT/Wilson Drone Camp, in which they develop, create, and lead week-long summer drone camps to teach youth in underserved communities how to fly and control drones. They’ve also expanded their Litter Locator app to multiple countries around the world, reaching students in Spain, South Korea, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Uganda, and the United States. Within those regions, the team is advising young people on how to lead projects and protect biodiversity in their own communities.

In collaboration with Friends of the Oak Park Open Space, Team Crayfish is striving to permanently reduce the invasive red swamp crayfish population in Oak Park, California. Over the course of 2024, they worked with students and teachers from the Harvard-Westlake School, along with local researchers specializing in invasive species, to host large and small scale removal events. Beyond physical removal efforts, they’ve also created interpretive panels that educate the community on local wildlife and the dangers of the invasive crayfish. Once the designs are complete, they will begin installation.

In Massachusetts, Team Springtails are working to combat species decline by raising awareness about the importance of biodiversity and educating their community on the risks that urbanization, harmful chemicals like pesticides, and factors that light and noise pollution pose to pollinators and other arthropods. This year, they’ve focused their efforts on a project to convert a half-acre area consisting of mostly lawn grass into a native plant habitat with around 60 species of perennials, shrubs, and trees native to New England. Through the biodiversity surveys they’ve conducted since last fall, the team has been able to document over 250 species of arthropods, which they will compare with new survey results once the planting is complete. They’ve also ramped up their local advocacy efforts by attending public-input sessions and providing oral and written comments stating the urgent need to protect forests and biodiversity.

Over in San Francisco, California, Project Super Plants (an entirely youth-led organization that began as part of the 2020 OurEcho Challenge) is educating, mobilizing, and inspiring elementary and middle schoolers to reduce CO₂ emissions. This team of 35 high schoolers have successfully run climate modules in 40 schools across Northern California, engaging over 2,500 students and giving students concrete actions they can take to feel hopeful and empowered despite the enormous challenges of climate change. In their first year, this team reached six classes, the next year, they reached 25, and in this past year, the organization reported reaching 70 classes! To meet increasing demand and continue to scale their impact sustainably, Project Super Plants is now creating a series of short videos that teachers can use as a part of their science curriculum.

Get Involved! 

Feeling inspired? All of these projects originated as ideas presented during the OurEcho Challenge. If you or someone you know loves nature, is interested in pursuing a major or career in STEM, or are just looking for a meaningful way to get involved in your community, EarthEcho is here to help! 

For today, three meaningful ways YOU can get involved is to: 

1. Share! Join us in celebrating #WorldHabitatDay by sharing some thoughts, reflections, or something that inspired you from this blog post on your social media channels. Be sure to tag @EarthEcho so we can amplify! 
2. Keep up to date with the OurEcho Challenge! You can be the first to know when this year’s OurEcho Challenge opens for submissions by signing up for EarthEcho news and alerts. 
3. Donate! EarthEcho International is a nonprofit organization, so the work we do is made possible by generous individuals and organizations who believe that engaging and educating young people is the key to building a durable environmental movement. If you’d like to make a contribution, you can do so here.