We are pleased to introduce a new partnership with Sprout Up. Sprout Up provides environmental science programs for 1st and 2nd-grade students that are delivered by volunteer college student instructors, organized into college chapters.
Teams of 3 to 5 college student instructors deliver a weekly program that consists of 8 lessons for each grade (total of 16 programs), with a volunteer to student ratio of 1:5. Volunteers undergo training to deliver the weekly lessons (activities, experiments, and discussions) which build on each other each week through a spring and summer semester. Concepts introduced in 1st-grade lessons are reinforced and elaborated on in the 2nd-grade program. A 3rd-grade program has also recently been developed.
Our Sprout Up program helps children understand the role they play in protecting our planet and inspiring them to be good environmental stewards. Students take their programs lessons home and get their parents involved. Together we are planting the seeds for a more sustainable future, from the youngest members of society up.
Sprout Up chapters are active at UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis, Cal Poly, Columbia University /Barnard College, and New York University.
Sprout Up was originally formed by students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2009. Sprout Up grew successfully for eight years, but in 2016, it outgrew its centralized management structure. Since 2016, Sprout Up has operated in a decentralized manner led by college chapter teams.
In order to become independently sustainable, Sprout Up NYC successfully attained fiscal sponsorship from the Open Space Institute, a land trust based in New York City, in December 2016. We then worked for two years to solidify our organizational and sustainability structure. In November 2018, Environmental Volunteers (the “EV”) approached Sprout Up to form a partnership, and we signed a memorandum of understanding in February 2019.
Utilizing 57 years of combined experience, Sprout Up and Environmental Volunteers will seek to sustain and revitalize Sprout Up Chapters in California and New York while reinforcing Environmental Volunteers’ existing programs with college student volunteers.
We also hope to bring environmental education to students nationally through the partnership and expansion of Sprout Up chapters in new universities and public schools.