Green Leadership Training for Youth

Course Description:
Being a “Green Leader” is a long term commitment to sustainability, both in personal and professional life. Sustainability is rooted in a systems-based approach that creates lasting change in the world around us. Green leadership training prepares young leaders to begin addressing the challenges and issues that have led to the degradation of human health, our communities and our environment. This course is designed to provide context for young leaders that can help to make strides in creating a sustainable world for future generations. We will examine the issues that surround the basic requirements of our society, like food and water, air quality and energy use, community development and business activities. Students will engage in interactive debate on the delicate balance between cultural, economic, and environmental systems. Each day, students will meet with local sustainability leaders to engage in hands-on, experiential sessions geared towards providing skills, knowledge, and inspiration for the next generation of green leaders. We aim to cultivate educated leaders that can take action based on the knowledge that environmental, economic, and social systems are inextricably linked, and that only through a systems-based, sustainably-oriented approach can we create a world worth living in.

Who should take this course?
18-22 year old high school or college-aged youth seeking to gain the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to becoming leaders and professionals in the green movement. Students interested in careers focused on building more sustainable economies, ecosystems, and communities should consider enrolling in this immersive, experiential training program.

Course Goals:

  • Provide youth leaders (18-22) with a hands-on, immersive experience in which they can engage directly with people, projects, programs, and systems devoted to creating a more sustainable world while fostering an understanding of the inherent challenges and opportunities faced in the green movement
  • Provide youth leaders with the opportunity to put into practice creative problem-solving skills, assessment techniques, and implementation strategies in order to generate solutions to sustainability challenges
  • Provide youth leaders with the opportunity to acquire and cultivate the knowledge necessary to effective leadership in the context of sustainability
  • Provide students with a comprehensive overview of the principles of sustainability while connecting those concepts with leadership in action

Course Objectives:

  • Students will demonstrate comprehension and transfer of theory into practice of the following concepts:
    • Sustainability (environmental, economic, social)
    • Life-cycle thinking
    • Leadership
  • Students will demonstrate the ability to think critically about sustainability challenges and explore solutions and opportunities through classroom and field exercises and activities.
  • Students will engage in active reflection on their roles in society as sustainability leaders, and begin to craft for themselves a vision and a path towards the achievement of their own personal and professional sustainability goals.
  • Students will participate in daily roundtable discussions with their peers and course instructors to explore questions and challenges posed by instructors and one another.
  • Students will demonstrate the ability to integrate skills and concepts learned during local leadership sessions through individual projects.
  • Students will work to identify personal leadership/work styles while also identifying personal growth goals they are cultivating.
  • Students will demonstrate leadership skills in their peer group by leading group activities through the week - followed by peer feedback and self-assessment activities.
  • Students will engage in dialogue with local sustainability leaders, preparing questions ahead of time and creating desired learning outcomes for each session (i.e. going into each session with an idea of what you would like to come away with). Following these sessions, students will engage in reflection/integration activities.
  • Students will submit a final integration reflection paper detailing learning highlights, personal growth, and plans for future implementation that came out of the week’s experiences.