Earth Week temporarily shines the spotlight on this vision, but ensuring a healthy environment requires a longer-term investment. We know people care deeply about their communities and quality of life — how do we effectively enlist them, and especially young people, our next generation of leaders, in ensuring that future?...
...Many of these learnings have come from our work in General Motors’ communities across the US and Canada. For the last 20 years, GM GREENhas seen young people, their educators, GM mentors, and community partners donning their waders to test the quality of their water and identify key issues that impact water quality.
Then, the young people work together to select one of those issues and to develop a project to contribute to a long-term solution. The ongoing commitment of watershed education partners has ensured that everyone has multiple opportunities to work together and to establish a legacy for local environmental stewardship.
GM GREEN uses a problem solving strategy that engages and values the input of young people. It instills lifelong habits around active civic engagement by challenging young people to solve problems. It helps them identify root causes, so that the projects they develop help address the real issue, not serve as a short-term remedy.