ATLANTA – May 9, 2012 – The Captain Planet Foundation (CPF), an organization dedicated to high-quality programs that empower youth to become global environmental change-makers, has announced it has named Leesa Carter as its new executive director. Carter previously served as executive director of the U.S. Green Building Council Georgia Chapter and will bring with her years of experience in executive-level nonprofit management and sustainability programming in schools.

Carter graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in communications from Wake Forest University. She currently serves on the Atlanta Recycles steering committee, the Turner Foundation’s Green Schools Roundtable and the Georgia Conservancy Blueprints Committee. Carter is also a member of the Industry Advisory Board for Southern Polytechnic State University and DeKalb Technical College’s Green Technologies Advisory Board.

“I am very excited about Leesa joining the Foundation as the new executive director,” said Laura Turner Seydel, chairperson of the Captain Planet Foundation. “The Captain Planet mission continues to grow in the U.S and around the world. Leesa’s passion and energy will allow the Foundation to teach and inspire a whole new generation of kids about the environment.”

Interim executive director and longtime board member Christina Stevens will continue to serve on the Foundation’s board.

“It has been an honor to serve as the Captain Planet Foundation’s interim executive director,” said Stevens. “We are excited for Leesa to step in and take the Foundation to new heights.”

“I believe the work of the Captain Planet Foundation is a vital part of the solution for our planet.  Like the Captain Planet Board, I believe we can’t afford to raise another generation without honoring and supporting the fact that every child holds a key to solving the environmental problems plaguing our communities,” said Carter. “In their fertile and imaginative brains lie the solutions to pollution, widespread implementation of renewable energy, water quality and access for every human, a healthy food economy, habitat protection for all the world’s inhabitants, and the means to a ‘sustainable global future’ in the true sense of the phrase. It is our job to give these student change-makers the tools, funding, and best practices to solve and implement their answers.”

SustainUS’s Citizen Science Paper Competition is an entirely volunteer-run, youth-led program that promotes appreciation of environmental issues by challenging fellow youth to actively generate innovative scientific solutions to environmental problems. For eight years SustainUS has provided competition winners the rare opportunity to present their original research and solutions to environmental professional and United Nations representatives from around the world at the U.N. Headquarters in New York City.

With their grant SustainUS expanded their paper competition to encourage middle and high school students to explore the link between environmental stewardship and women’s empowerment. The winners wrote about this year’s theme of “empowering rural woman and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.” The winners presented their work at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Citizen Science students are interested in enriching public dialogue with innovative and scientific approaches to sustainable development. The paper competition actively engaged the students in real world environmental problem solving and facilitated transformative, hands-on learning experiences in the halls of the United Nations, empowering future environmental leaders with the perspective to innovate planetary-scale environmental solutions.

Toyota’s 100 Cars for Good program will be awarding 100 vehicles to 100 nonprofits over the course of 100 days based on votes from the public. A total of 500 nonprofits were selected from more than 4,000 applications nationwide. We are hoping to win a new Toyota Prius V to help Captain Planet spread the word about environmental education to youth at schools, community organizations and eco-events.

Healing Harvest created and coordinates the greenhouse, learning garden project as part of the sustainable agriculture program at Kennedy Alternative High School in Cottage Grove, Oregon. This is a well-established site with an outdoor garden area with 3,300 square feet of planting space, as well as over 1,000 square feet of fully equipped professional-quality greenhouse space. The garden will be expanded by approximately 1,600 square feet in the next two years. Students are involved in all aspects of planning, propagating, planting, watering, harvesting, consuming, preserving and distributing excess food.

For more information about this project and Healing Harvest click here, email healingharvest1@gmail.com, or call 541.915.0599

The “Our Youth, Our Environment, Our Planet” project was born from the partnership between GivingPoint and Alpharetta High School to address a critical need to provide at- risk, disabled and special needs teens with an outdoor working classroom to learn about environment stewardship, nutrition, conservation and to have a quiet place of solace. Volunteers created a multi-layered walking trail on 15,000 square feet of land, designed for wheelchair and non-wheelchair bound children.

For more information about this project and GivingPoint click here or email Ansley Colby at ansley@mygivingpoint.org

Under the direction of Earth Care International, The Grapevine Gardening and Mobile Tool shed is a project led by youth in the Youth Allies Program who have received training in permaculture, Sustainability, and peer education. The project includes youth garden plots at five community gardens throughout the city as well as a converted cargo van that will serve as a mobile tool shed.

The mobile tool shed is a way of pooling resources by creating one shared cache of tools that can be accessed by all of the school and community gardens in Santa Fe. The community garden plots are located in three city parks with two additional sites to include a demonstration garden in a low-income residential neighborhood. The youth are working to create a new garden in collaboration with local businesses, a community center, an elementary school, and residents in the low- income neighborhood.

For more information about this project and Earth Care  click here, or email info@earthcarenm.org

The day will offer a fantastic array of “edutainment” to engage and entertain families!  Start the morning off with a handshake and photo opportunity with the world’s first and only eco-superhero, Captain Planet! And in true Saturday morning tradition, Planeteers of all ages can watch select Captain Planet and the Planeteers episodes in the Cowie Weiss Theater. Laughing Pizza will return to the festival this year to bring their power packed musical performance on stage. And things will get a little wild with live native animal presentations by our co-host, Chattahoochee Nature Center! Learn how to play yard games from all over the world while watching an interactive presentation and book signing of Tag, Toss & Run by co-authors, Paul Tukey and award-winning actress, Victoria Rowell. Look for much more excitement this year as the planning is underway to provide an entirely new experience for the entire family.  You’ll always enjoy the face painting and canoe paddling on the pond, but don’t be surprised to see some new famous faces.

Held on the grounds of the Chattahoochee Nature Center, this exciting, family experience is brought to the community by the Macy’s Foundation as presenting sponsor with XFINITY from Comcast and the Atlanta Journal Constitution as media sponsors.

In honor of our 10th Anniversary, we are combining forces with the Earth Day Network (EDN) to promote the ‘Billion Acts of Green’® campaign. Already, 499,578,824 global citizens have committed to their act of green and EDKF is a fantastic opportunity to get involved. Log on to http://act.earthday.org/ to register your act of green today!
The price of admission is $5 for children, $6 for seniors, $8 for adults, and children under two are free. Visit www.chattnaturecenter.org for more information.

Ride your bike from home to receive free admission! Visit www.chattnaturecenter.org for more information.

In 1969 she applied to participate in the Tektite project. This venture, sponsored jointly by the U.S. Navy, the Department of the Interior and NASA allowed teams of scientist to live for weeks at a time in an enclosed habitat on the ocean floor fifty feet below the surface, off the Virgin Islands. By this time, Sylvia had spent more than a thousand research hours underwater, more than any other scientists who applied to the program, but, as she says, “the people in charge just couldn’t cope with the idea of men and women living together underwater.”
The result was Tektite II, Mission 6, an all-female research expedition led by Dr. Earle herself. In 1970, Sylvia Earle and four other women dove 50 feet below the surface to the small structure they would call home for the next two weeks. In the 1970s, scientific missions took Sylvia Earle to the Galapagos, to the water off Panama, to China and the Bahamas and, again, to the Indian Ocean. During this period she began a productive collaboration with undersea photographer Al Giddings. Together, they investigated the battleship graveyard in the Caroline Islands of the South Pacific.
In the 1980s, along with engineer Graham Hawkes, she started the companies Deep Ocean Engineering and Deep Ocean Technologies. These ventures design and build undersea vehicles like Deep Rover and Deep Flight which are making it possible for scientists to maneuver at depths that defied all previously existing technology. In the middle of this life of adventure, Sylvia Earle has been married and raised three children, some of whom have worked side by side with her at Deep Ocean Engineering.
In the early 1990s, Dr. Earle took a leave of absence from her companies to serve as Chief Scientist of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. There, among other duties, Sylvia Earle was responsible for monitoring the health of the nation’s waters. In this capacity she also reported on the environmental damage wrought by Iraq’s burning of the Kuwaiti oil fields.
Among the more than 100 national and international honors she has received is the 2009 TED Prize for her proposal to establish a global network of marine protected areas. She calls these marine preserves “hope spots, to save and restore the blue heart of the planet.”
Today, Dr. Earle is Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society. She recently led the Google Ocean Advisory Council, a team of 30 marine scientists providing innovative content and scientific oversight for the “Ocean in Google Earth.” A lover and protector of our oceans, she has led over 70 expeditions, logging more than 6500 hours underwater.

This year, the Atlanta Families’ Awards recognizes 10 outstanding teachers and school leaders in the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) system. Each winner is awarded $7,500, which includes funding for a school project of the winner’s choice ($3,500), funding for a professional development opportunity to increase the winner’s effectiveness in the school or classroom ($1,500) and a personal stipend ($2,500). These grants will help fund innovative classroom and school-wide projects designed by winners to improve students’ access to quality education.

This is the second year Captain Planet has partnered with the AFAEE to surprise a winner. His special appearance supports the green project Ms. Robbins has planned for the school. She has proposed an outdoor classroom that will provide students with a non-traditional space for learning that highlights the importance of green space and our environment.  A space where all subject areas are taught, the outdoor classroom will be a connection and extension of the school’s beautiful garden.

In the pictures:

“Robbins Surprise” L to R. Captain Planet/ APS School Board Member, Cecily Harsh-Kinnane/ Principal Winner Robin Robbins/ The winner’s mother, Doris Brown / AFAEE co-founder and board co-chair, Katie McDowell / AFAEE board co-chair, Prescott C. Miller.

The Planeteer movement of Ghana consists of mainly young professionals and students who dedicate their extra time from work and school to engage in this voluntary project. The group takes it source and originality from the Captain Planet Foundation in Atlanta, USA which was founded in 1991 after the Captain Planet carton series. Launched in October 2010 by Laura Turner, daughter of media mogul and founder of CNN, Ted Turner. In Ghana, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panyin, Omanhene of the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area is the life patron whilst Mr. Edward Boateng, Executive Chairman of the Global Media Alliance Group serves as the Director.

Until recently when ZOIL Services Limited, a subsidiary of Zoomlion was contracted to clean the beach, the Gold Coast Beach had been abandoned and left to the hands of squatters and has been used illegally as refuse site for people who had no care for the environment. However due to the heavy rains that was experienced a few weeks ago, the rains carried along refuse such as waste plastic, coconut husk, dresses, shoes and many others unto the shore. This increased the work of employees of ZOIL Services limited as they needed more hands to keep the place clean.

With assistance from the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and ZOIL Services Limited, the Planeteers demarcated a 200 metres stretch on the shore and set it as their target for the day. About 20 in number and with support from personnel from ZOIL Services Limited, the Planeteers were able to clear the zone from all its waste and refuse. They named the zone “PLANETEERS CORNER” as they plan to visit the beach frequently to keep an eye on it.

In an interview with the president of the group, Mr. Timothy Karikari, explained that the beach cleanup is the last of 5 projects they outlined in the beginning of the year. The first which took place on the 14th of May 2011 was the “I matter March” project. According to him, it was a day for all Planeteers in the world to demonstrate against the pollution of the environment by human activities. Members of the Ghana Planeteers marched on the streets of Accra as they presented a 2 page petition to the PRO of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Mr. Numo Blafo recommending actions to be implemented by the government. The second phase of the project was on the 15th of October when the Planeteers participated in a cleanup exercise organized by the Be Bold project of e.tv Ghana at the Circle Odwana in Accra. The third and fourth projects were educational trips to Achimota Preparatory school and Achimota Primary School respectively to educate the students on source separation and recycling. This occurred on the 21st and 26th of October respectively. As a long term objective, the group intends to set up Planeteer clubs in all the educational institutions to extend its presence.