George Washington University
EN-1: Student Educators Program

Eco-Reps are sustainability leaders who promote a culture of sustainability within the GW residence halls and community. As peer educators, Eco-Reps inform and engage students in activities that encourage a sustainable lifestyle.

The target audience of the Eco Reps program is students that live on campus in the residence halls. Educational and community-building programming facilitated by the Eco Reps focuses on sustainable lifestyle choices that students can implement from their dorm room.

Planet Forward is a platform for students who employ storytelling as a way to engage with sustainability. Launched in 2009 and based based in GW's School of Media and Public Affairs, Planet Forward supports a diverse group of students and faculty as well as others across the country and around the world.

Planet Forward hosts outreach, training, and convenings for students at 24 Consortium colleges and universities, including GW, on an annual basis. Their accredited course, annual Summit, experiential learning opportunities, and virtual and live events engage, train, and amplify the voices and stories of more than 200 student storytellers every year. These student storytellers aim to reach their peers on each of their campuses, as well as followers beyond the colleges.

Content for Planet Forward is sourced from student educators at GW, as well as student contributors from other campuses. In addition to regular contributions, Planet Forward hosts 15 college student Correspondents across the nation, including GW, who regularly contribute stories of sustainability to the Planet Forward website. Announced in spring 2021 with co-host University of Arizona, is our new Indigenous Correspondent Program, co-founded by two Indigenous students - one from GW and one from U of A. The stories generated from Planet Forward Correspondents broaden the reach for sustainability programs in their local communities and college campuses.

On the GW campus specifically, students and students minoring in sustainability are encouraged to create short videos of their research, internship, or campus activities involving issues of sustainability, or to go more in depth on sustainability or environmental issues impacting their community on campus or at home. There are several courses that include this in their curriculum, including: Sustainability 101 (the university-wide undergraduate course on sustainability), Sustainability Reporting (SMPA), and Science Communication (SMPA) to name a few. As we rebuild our program after being out because of the pandemic, we had 33 GW students contribute 62 stories to the Planet Forward website during AY2021-22. The program uplifts student storytellers, highlights the environmental and sustainability work of faculty and staff, and targets all of GW's students with their message and stories about sustainability on campus and beyond. The sustainability stories generated from GW Planet Forward contributors alone reach approximately 1,000 GW students per year.

Planet Forward's primary target audience is comprised of academics, campus leadership, and other students across the U.S., and the general public through dissemination across social media channels. However, as of the end of FY22, Planet Forward's audience reached more than 10,000 contacts from its newsletter alone, which includes sustainability professionals, journalists, policymakers, civic leadership, and executives. Student articles are subsequently read by employees of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The GW Compost program is a student-led initiative to divert compostable waste from the landfill. A team of paid interns, the Office of Sustainability Compost Educators, direct the program, and recruit volunteers to manage its operations. Six days a week, GW Compost sets up a collection station in a central location on campus, and collects compostable material from students, faculty, and staff to be delivered to an industrial composting facility off site. The students who lead the program are responsible for organizing the collection and training the student volunteers on proper compost technique. Trained volunteers then identify and remove contamination from the collection, weigh the material to collect data, and record personal information from participants. Compost Educators also provide planning and operational support to events on campus, working with organizers to ensure that caterering and servicewear limits or eliminiates landfill waste and that on-site composting is available.

The target audience for GW Compost Volunteers is all GW students. Any student can sign up to volunteer by accessing GW Serves, the university's platform for connecting students with service opportunities.

https://sustainability.gwu.edu/student-groups
https://sustainability.gwu.edu/waste

Planet Forward is a GW-led platform that engages students across many colleges and universities in sustainability dialogues both here and abroad. Formally, Planet Forward has a consortium of 22 partner schools.

Hundreds of GW students are engaged in sustainability-related internships on- and off-campus. Example of on-campus internship: One student designed and implemented a Sustainable Student Pledge in the Summer of 2017. Off campus example: A student interned in the White House Council on Environmental Quality https://www.planetforward.org/idea/engaging-the-public-the-obama-administration%E2%80%99s-environmental-record

Additional:
Internships are a great way for students to gain exposure to sustainability on campus and to build their resume experience in the field. The Office of Sustainability has had interns working in the office since it opened in 2009, bringing in students who have worked in a variety of capacities:
• Interns have played key roles in event planning and research of sustainability issues and best practices;
• Interns have assisted with student engagement activities, such as Eco-Rep coordination and managing our faculty/staff engagement efforts - the Green Office Network;
• Summer interns have researched the feasibility of a green campus fund, designed and launched sustainable procurement policies for GW, and created a sustainable water use video to enhance student engagement on the issue;
• Interns manage the outreach and coordination of the Green Office Network with offices across campus;
• Interns have contributed significantly to the research, content, and development of GW’s Climate Action Plan, GWater Plan, and Ecosystems Enhancement Strategy– the three components of GW’s strategic plan for sustainability practice;
• The student garden manager position helps manage and coordinate the work in on-campus garden;
• Interns in conjunction with Eco-Reps take leadership roles in coordinating Green Move-Out providing assistance;
• Interns assist with meter-reading and recycling efforts throughout the year.
•Interns have assisted with compiling data for several sustainability reporting mechanisms, as well as a progress report.
Students outside of the Office of Sustainability also work with the Zero Waste team and the Energy and Environmental Management team on their efforts throughout the university to improve water and environmental efficiency and recycling efforts, among other endeavors. The number of students served are the most recent year's total who are working in these offices.

The Green Student Coalition is designed to connect student leaders from a variety of green organizations at GW. The Coalition is targeted to students in green organizations, but also to any GW student interested in sustainability to create a sense of community for "green-minded" individuals at GW.Through the Coalition meetings, student leaders share with one another upcoming sustainability-related events and volunteer opportunities. The meetings also allow the student leaders to get to know one another and to join forces on upcoming projects that have similar themes and objectives. The meetings serve as a platform for student organizations to communicate ways in which the Sustainable GW team can support them.

The students served by this program include both the student leaders of the organizations that attend each year, as well as the students who participate in those student groups, who receive a report out on the meetings from the student leaders.