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The Action Project

Using Environmental Action Civics RiverXchange® students experience a change-making process that develops real-world problem solving skills.

The Action Project provides students with the opportunity to determine and address watershed health issues that affect their community at the school, neighborhood, or city level. Integrating an action project into curriculum is an opportunity for students to connect with key watershed concepts and topics through on-the-ground work and skill-building.

RiverXchange® utilizes an Environmental Action Civics process developed by Earth Force. RiverXchange® staff work closely with the Earth Force team to ensure we are delivering the most high-quality resources and guidance available to support action project success in our classrooms. Environmental Action Civics is a youth-adult partnership that helps young people identify environmental concerns in their community, investigate the causes of these concerns, and to advocate for positive, effective changes to policies or practices in their communities. Environmental Action Civics emphasizes process over product and skill-building in collaboration, investigation and reflection. Determining effective solutions to real-world problems and asking for change can seem daunting, even to adults. However, developing these skills alongside our core program on local water resource and watershed health concerns is an impactful way to start building these skills in the youth of today.

By empowering students to work together to creatively solve problems through an action project, we are supporting students in becoming the next generation of stewards and advocates for our lands and waters. 

May contain: person, adult, male, man, computer, electronics, laptop, pc, face, and head
Students create a model of their watershed
Outdoor scene with people near a red trash can, trees, vehicles, and a blue sky. Image rotated 90 degrees.
Litter clean up is fun
Students holding environmental awareness posters in a classroom.
Student posters promote reducing waste and caring for the earth
Hand-drawn "Don't Litter" sign with Earth illustration, taped to a surface, next to a "Please" sign.
Student signs promote awareness
A group of diverse kids with an adult smiling outside a building.
Litter clean up project success
A group of smiling students and adults posing outside, some wearing gloves, giving a thumbs-up sign.
Celebrating litter clean up
Two children sitting on an orange mat; the older one is writing on a clipboard while a younger child looks on.
Students take data from peers about food waste behaviors
Two boys, one writing, indoors, with a window behind them.
Students take data from peers about food waste behaviors
May contain: person, adult, male, man, computer, electronics, laptop, pc, face, and head
Outdoor scene with people near a red trash can, trees, vehicles, and a blue sky. Image rotated 90 degrees.
Students holding environmental awareness posters in a classroom.
Hand-drawn "Don't Litter" sign with Earth illustration, taped to a surface, next to a "Please" sign.
A group of diverse kids with an adult smiling outside a building.
A group of smiling students and adults posing outside, some wearing gloves, giving a thumbs-up sign.
Two children sitting on an orange mat; the older one is writing on a clipboard while a younger child looks on.
Two boys, one writing, indoors, with a window behind them.
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