September Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Get Outdoors! Explore your school grounds or a local park.
2.0 Grab some friends to explore with you! Possibly share a meal in one of the green spaces on campus or in your local community.
Faith in Action
1.0 Make a habit of using a reusable water bottle this month.
2.0 Post a picture of yourself refilling your reusable water bottle at school using #iggycarbon.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Read The Good Life from a Catholic Perspective: The Challenge of Consumption, by Monsignor Charles Murphy.
2.0 Ask one of your teachers or club moderators if you can discuss it in class.
Our Global Community
1.0 Explore Jesuit and other Catholic schools that are at the forefront of becoming sustainable.
2.0 Reach out to their environmental program or club to see how you can get connected or how you can emulate what they are doing at your school.
October Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Find out if your school has a sustainability plan. If they do, read it. What would you change or add to it? If they don’t, reflect on what you’d like to see in your school’s sustainability plan.
2.0 Thank your administrators if your school has a sustainability plan. If your school doesn’t have one, ask your school administrators to consider creating one.
Faith in Action
1.0 Read one of the 4 case studies that relates global climate change to race, class, gender, and climate-vulnerable communities.
2.0 Share the case studies with someone in your school community, and post a thought or comment on social media that arose from discussing them using #iggycarbon.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Complete this activity to help grasp the magnitude of the amount of plastic bottles Americans use in one year.
2.0 Bring the “Ban the Bottle” Movement to your community in order to decrease the consumption of plastic bottles. OR Be inspired by this Chris Jordan Ted Talk to create a piece of public art related to plastic consumption.
Our Global Community
1.0 Check out NASA’s global time machine to see how the Earth’s climate has changed in recent history. Use this link to identify the health risks of climate change and the groups most at risk.
2.0 Find organizations you can follow on social media to keep track of climate change and ways you can respond.
November Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Create a low-impact main or side dish for a Thanksgiving meal or other communal meal by using locally sourced food or cutting out beef or all meat products.
2.0 Work with your family or a group of friends to prepare an entire meal with the lowest carbon footprint possible.
Faith in Action
1.0 Start a gratitude journal for the earth, and record something related to the environment that you are grateful for every day this month.
2.0 Bring your journal to life by creating a communal space (ex: bulletin board) for people to show gratitude for the earth. If your school already has a communal space, participate in it!
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Track your purchases every day this month and reflect each week on your purchases.
2.0 Do you really need that extra snack or shirt? Replace one purchase you were planning to make this month with a donation or purchase for the benefit of someone else.
Our Global Community
1.0 Ask a family member about a food or food tradition that is important to your culture.
2.0 Host a potluck and encourage your guests to bring foods from their culture.
December Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Learn about the devastating effects of war and militarization on the natural world, including the criminalization of environmental and human rights activists.
2.0 Advocate for more non-violent solutions to global conflict and practice nonviolence in your own speech and actions.
Faith in Action
1.0 Use the daily Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar to practice Visio Divina.
2.0 Gather friends and constellation maps. Go out at night and take part in the ancient spiritual practice of winter star gazing to cultivate your awe and wonder of the world.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Create repurposed Christmas decorations.
2.0 Decorate a tree at your school with totally repurposed ornaments made by students.
Our Global Community
1.0 Watch The True Cost documentary
2.0 Convince your club, team, or school to use sustainably-sourced, ethically-made t-shirts for an upcoming event.
January Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Take the Gross National Happiness Index survey to get personal results about areas in your life where you feel more and less fulfilled, then download the “Roadmap to Happiness” for that area.
2.0 After reviewing your results, try the following “Roadmap to Happiness” suggestion: perform an act of kindness to someone or the earth. This may be as simple as smiling at the cashier, saying thank you to a fellow student or teacher, or picking up stray litter.
Faith in Action
1.0 Read this article on environmental racism and the #NoDAPL protests in 2017.
2.0 Have a conversation with a friend or family member about how racism is intertwined with environmental injustice. In your city or town, are there any examples of environmental injustice rooted in racism?
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Watch this Buzzfeed video about a woman who tried to produce zero waste for 30 days.
2.0 Find one way to move a community you are in towards zero waste (ie. go paper-free for your club meetings, make a video about how your school can be zero-waste advocates, advocate for motion-sensored lights in your school, get a compost bin, or make a pledge to avoid all food waste for one week).
Our Global Community
1.0 Take a look at creative environmental protest signs on 350.org
2.0 Channel your inner activist. Create your own environmental sign and ask for permission to hang it up in your school.)
February Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Learn about the environmental effects of animal agriculture through videos and statistics. Participate in the Meatless Monday movement this month.
2.0 Post your Meatless Monday meals using #iggycarbon.
Faith in Action
1.0 Watch the “Story of Solutions” video to learn about how people are using their ingenuity to improve sustainability on the Earth and take the Changemaker Personality Quiz to help identify some of your talents.
2.0 Using the information from the Changemaker quiz, identify a problem in your local community or school and make a plan to solve it using your talents and strengths when possible. Engage other people as much as possible in the process.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Learn about how we can Stop Humans From Filling the World With Trash.
2.0 Find out if your school has a Campus Kitchens program and if it would be feasible to start one. Bonus: Form a team and get one started!
Our Global Community
1.0 Write a love letter about people, places, or things that you could lose to climate change.
2.0 Gather and present letters within your school community. Create a time capsule to be opened in 10 years to store your letters.
March Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Watch this video about how to have effective, compassionate conversations about sensitive issues.
2.0 If you believe in climate change, find someone who doesn’t, and find out what drives them not to believe in it. If you don’t believe in climate change, find someone who does, and find out what drives their belief. Challenge yourself to listen more than talk during the conversation.
Faith in Action
1.0 Explore the Catholic Climate Covenant website. Consider signing up for action alerts via email.
2.0 Sign the St. Francis Pledge, and share or invite friends and family to join you in signing it on social media using #iggycarbon.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Create a self watering seedling container from a single use bottle.
2.0 Find a way to plant or give away your seedling.
Our Global Community
1.0 Watch this spoken-word video from UN Climate Poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijner then read about her home in The Marshall Islands are Disappearing
2.0 Attend, create, or mark your calendar for an event, march, protest, or action at your school or in your wider community related to environmental issues. (Example: the People’s Climate March taking place in April)
April Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Post a selfie with a tree whose identity you learned. What type of tree is it? #iggycarbon
2.0 Organize a service day to plant 100 trees (or other practical vegetation) somewhere on campus in conjunction with a local land trust or state or national park service. Why plant trees?
Faith in Action
1.0 Write a short prayer or intention concerning our global response to environmental issues.
2.0 Work with your faith community or school to host a prayer service for the environment, or add an environmental prayer or intention to a worship service.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Purchase used clothing or accessories for a dance or school event rather than buying new.
2.0 Organize a swap event with your friends or neighbors where everyone brings clean things to exchange with each other. Donate any extras.
Our Global Community
1.0 Read the story of Curitiba to learn about how one city worked together to make dramatic transformations.
2.0 Have a video call with someone in another country or different climate. Ask about local environmental issues and brainstorm solutions together.
May Challenges
Broadening My Horizons
1.0 Incorporate sustainable transportation as part of your commute (e.g. carpooling, biking, walking, public transportation). Estimate the number of gallons of gasoline that you have saved by using more sustainable options (vs. driving by yourself). How many pounds of carbon dioxide will this prevent from being released into the atmosphere?
2.0 Bring a friend on your sustainable journey! Post a picture of you and your friends finishing the ride using #iggycarbon.
Faith in Action
1.0 Discover your connection to nature once more! Pray using an outdoor labyrinth if your school or community has one. If they don’t, find an outdoor space in nature to pray.
2.0 Find a blog post from the Renewing the Face of the Earth series that speaks to you. Then, write your own creative short reflection, and submit it to ISN for potential publication.
The Consumer in Me
1.0 Find successful entrepreneurs who turned garbage into business. (Check out a story about a Cleveland upcycling shop or sustainable clothing options like RareForm, 4Ocean, Sole Rebels).
2.0 Grab some friends and pick an upcycling project. Instead of selling it, gift your upcycled object to someone you’re thankful for.
Our Global Community
1.0 Research opportunities for high school or college students to participate in programs related to environmental issues.
2.0 Post this opportunity on social media using #iggycarbon
