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Educating for the Environment

Youth for the Environment and People (YEP!)

Creating a space for youth voices, leadership, and advocacy on issues students care about. Applications closed for spring 2025 — check back this summer for our fall program.

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Calling all high school students in Whatcom or Skagit County interested in collaborating with other youth on a climate action project!

Youth for the Environment and People (YEP!) provides an opportunity for students to share ideas and passions, learn about climate change solutions, engage in local stewardship projects, and work together with other youth in choosing, planning and implementing a group action project. And, of course, have fun!

YEP! participants will:

  • Meet and work with youth in the region to create and implement a student-led action project
  • Discover, empower, and refine individual skills and talents
  • Practice stepping into leadership roles
  • Connect with local organizations working to solve local climate change in our region
  • Learn about local and global climate change solutions
  • Participate in two local field days exploring hands-on solutions

YEP! runs for 10 weeks and is offered both in the spring and fall semesters:

I had never had a chance to join an official group or be a part of a project to make a change and help the community. This was my first time and definitely not my last”

— Ay, 2023 YEP! Participant

Spring 2025 theme: Pollution Free Salish Sea

Starting in February, we’ll gather a cohort of fifteen students from Whatcom County high schools for our spring cohort. Students will learn about pollution prevention in the Salish Sea, diving into how pollution ends up in our urban creeks and eventually the ocean, and how it impacts our watershed and community health. From there, we’ll explore solutions: how can we alter the landscape to catch pollutants? What strategies exist for eliminating pollutants at the source? On a field day at a local creek, we’ll learn how to monitor water quality and hear from experts about local solutions in action. Then, students will design and implement their own solution to the issue through a group action project. Facilitators guide, support, and educate while students lead and work collaboratively on the group action project.

More details about the program
  • Applicants must attend high school in Whatcom County 
  • YEP! is facilitated by Cambry Baker, Youth Engagement Coordinator at RE Sources This program will run for 10 weeks from February 24th until May 5th  (no meeting April 7th for Spring Break)
  • We provide a $150 stipend upon completion of the group project to compensate students for their time and efforts

Applications closed for spring 2025. Sign up for our newsletter to stay tuned on what the cohort accomplishes. The newsletter will include a call for applications this summer for our fall 2025 program. We’ll also post it to our Instagram!

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If you want to participate but feel it would be easier to talk to someone over the phone or in person rather than apply through the link, please contact YEP@re-sources.org or call (360) 733-8307.

Questions? Please contact:

YEP@re-sources.org

Timeline

Application due: 10:00pm on Sunday, February 9th. You will be informed of acceptance into the program by February 11th. You must confirm you want to accept the offer by February 16th.

Note: all of the above correspondence will happen via email.

Who can participate? Applicants must attend high school in Whatcom County. There are 15 spots available.

How long is it? Starting February 24th, YEP! runs on Mondays for 10 weeks including two field days, one on Saturday, March 8th and the second one TBD, ending on May 5th (no meeting on April 7th for Spring Break).

Where and when are the meetings? We will meet Mondays from 4-6 PM at RE Sources in Bellingham (2309 Meridian St., upstairs from The RE Store).

What are the benefits? We provide a $150 stipend upon completion of the group project to compensate students for their time and efforts. Must attend 9 of the 12 meetings and participate in the group project to receive the stipend.

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Past YEP! Projects

Fall 2024 – Ecological Forestry

Whatcom Cohort: Students hosted a letter-writing workshop where participants hand-wrote comments to the Whatcom County Council in support of decoupling school funding from timber sales in favor of more stable, long-term sources of revenue for schools that don’t come at the cost of students’ climate futures.

Skagit Cohort: Planned and taught a classroom lesson to help sixth graders learn about local forests and why they are important.

Read about their work here

 

Spring 2024 – Energy

Students conducted an energy and cost savings analysis of retrofitting Options High School with LED lights and presented their findings to the Bellingham School District’s Sustainability Task Force. Check out their LED retrofit project here.

 

Fall 2023 – Flooding

Whatcom Cohort: Interested in educating the next generation about flooding mitigation, students led 45 Wild Whatcom elementary students in hands-on flooding lessons afterschool, as well as hosted a restoration work party.

Skagit Cohort: To help their community be flood prepared, students designed and distributed a flooding preparedness “how-to” brochure to neighbors and community members, alongside homemade baked goods.

Read more about their projects

 

Spring 2023 – Fast Fashion

Interested in helping their peers ditch fast fashion, students hosted an outdoor clothing swap to raise awareness of the impacts of fast fashion and keep textiles out of the landfill.

Learn about how students addressed fast fashion.

 

Fall 2022 – Food Waste

Whatcom Cohort: Following their passion for food justice, students held an educational event at the Bellingham Farmers Market and hand-painted 36 ceramic bowls that they sold to raise over $900 for the Bellingham Food Bank.

Skagit Cohort: For their action project, the Skagit cohort decided to focus on improving food composting at their local schools, as well as educating the local community about the importance of composting and its effect on reducing climate change.

Learn more about how students tackled food waste on our blog.

 

Fall 2021 – Carbon Sources and Sinks

Whatcom Cohort: YEP! students partnered with NSEA to co-host a tree planting work party along Squalicum Creek and planted 28 trees just after historic flooding in November with the help of other passionate youth from Ferndale High School.

Skagit Cohort: Through exploration of carbon sinks (a natural system that can limit climate change by storing carbon from the atmosphere) the Skagit students discovered the Kulshan Carbon Trust and decided to create a well-researched brochure for the non-profit that would educate stakeholders on their programs.

Check out their carbon-sequestration projects

 

Fall 2020 – Environmental Justice

Whatcom Cohort: After deciding to center their project around food inequity, students sewed 20 bags out of old t-shirts and filled them with food, a gift card to a local food establishment, notes of encouragement and a list of helpful resources and donated them to NorthWest Youth Services.

Skagit Cohort: In a two-part project, students donated COVID-19 safety supplies to those in need, and created a website that included helpful COVID resources, highlighting the link between a healthy environment and healthy people, while providing important background information about environmental justice.

Find out more about how these teens worked for environmental justice.

Spring 2019 – Orca Health

Whatcom Cohort: Students channeled their passions with paint to raise awareness about the perils facing the Southern Resident Orcas of the Salish Sea through making an art mural on the side of the RE Store.

See their mural and the work they accomplished

 

Spring 2018 – Pilot Program

Whatcom: This cohort marks the launch of YEP!. RE Sources partnered with Sahar Arbab, a WWU grad student, to design, trial, and evaluate the first iteration of Youth for the Environment and People! Students in this cohort explored climate solutions, participated in focus groups, and planned a letter-writing event.