Planetfesto.org in the classroom

When my husband and I launch Planetfesto on Valentine’s Day we got lots of interest from educators, great, creative contributions from many schools, and some requests for further features… we’ve been hard at work over the summer building exactly these features.

In short, Planetfesto is an environmental educational and action movement that creates a virtual ribbon long enough to wrap around the earth. To do pieces of the ribbon, students simply choose a photo on the site (or upload their own photo or drawing), say why they love the planet, and what they're personally going to do to protect it (we have plenty of ideas on the site if students don’t have their own). If they are stumped, there is plenty of inspiration just watching the ribbon scroll by, with impassioned declarations of love and individual action from all over the world. We’ve had people participate from 37 countries, and many schools have hundreds of students who have participated.

Things we’ve added for this school year:
-- search the ribbon and view a custom subset of just your school, location, or community

-- rank individual pieces of the ribbon and view the most popular worldwide, and also by country

-- music (with more to come!)

-- controls to make the ribbon go back and forth and pause

-- More "things to do" for the environment especially for kids.

Teachers involved so far are excited to have a project that blends art, writing, environmental education, science and computer literacy. We were just talking with a middle school science teacher who is excited to frame his environmental education with planetfesto by having students create a panel at the beginning of the year, and then come back and edit it later after they have covered more information on ecosystems to see if they have pushed themselves hard enough. There’s a lesson plan on the site, but we’d LOVE to hear your ideas and responses to add to the community.

The site was created as a totally volunteer effort by a family in California. Planetfesto was named one of the Natural Resources Defense Council's web sites of the week at: http://www.nrdc.org/reference/picks/pick0703.asp. We’ve also been featured in the E-bulletin of the National Association of Independent Schools.

We’re at www.planetfesto.org. For more information contact Nancy Raff at 510/595-1888 or nancy@planetfesto.org

Thanks for you interest!

Nancy Raff