This calendar has been created by the EarthEcho International Youth Leadership Council. These youth, aged 16-22, designed this calendar to increase awareness and inspire behavior change to protect our collective future. The YLC invites you to use this calendar track and change your habits and, hopefully, provide monthly ideas to help you live a more sustainable, conscientious lifestyle.

As the name suggests, microbeads are very small (microscopic) beads of plastic. Since they are particles of less than 1mm, they are almost impossible to capture as they enter household drains. This leaves these small, solid balls of plastic to enter our aquatic ecosystems where they are ingested by organisms and accumulated within the food web. In this activity, students are challenged to design and construct their own device to extract microplastics from cosmetic products such as facial cleansers, body wash, and toothpaste.

In this investigation, students describe the life cycle of man-made products that include or originate from plastic to evaluate how they may impact the environment. Students use a basic life cycle assessment – similar to assessments used by process engineers – that allows them to identify and order the different steps in the life cycle of a product. Using their analyses to compare the impacts of different products, students develop ideas to reduce the environmental impact of the production process or lifecycle of the product.

Join EarthEcho International and 2017 EarthEcho Expeditions Fellow, Mr. Jim Trogdon, and Mr. Paul Brentlinger, CEO of CropKing Inc as we learn all about aquaponics.

In this curricular guide, middle school students learn about an alternative farming technique that addresses water use in agricultural farming, the environmental impacts of fish farms, and urban development and population growth. This guide promotes 21st-century skills by engaging students in the history of aquaponics through various texts; improving their communication skills by explaining how an aquaponics system works; and engineering your own classroom aquaponics unit through an interactive design challenge!

In Southern California, about 80% of the freshwater supply is used for farming. Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau meet with executive chef and farmer Adam Navidi from Future Foods Farms in Brea, CA. Chef Adam uses an innovative farming design called aquaponics to grow lettuce, vegetables, and even fish with less water than the average family uses at home on a daily basis.

Water, water everywhere...could the ocean be a reasonable source of freshwater for our communities? Philippe Cousteau travels to the West Basin Municipal Water District’s Water Education Center in Redondo Beach, CA.. Here Darryl Ramos-Young explains the process of desalination and the results of a multi-year pilot study examining the benefits and challenges of turning saltwater into freshwater.

This design challenge moves your students from passive to active learners through a cross-curricular, hands-on team challenge in direct correlation to real-world issues of water conservation. By creating prototype desalination plants and companies, students in grades 6-8 will understand how substances are separated, the need for freshwater conservation, and ultimately how a desalination plant works.