Training Opportunity

We are now training teams that want to make a good living presenting dynamic and interactive one-day programs in elementary and middle schools all around the World. We are recruiting for every metropolitan region in the US and Canada.

Training last four days. The first two days, Thursday and Friday, you observe us teaching in a school. This includes everything from teachers meeting before school in the early morning to Family Night from 7-8:30 in the evening. Then we spend Saturday and Sunday discussing the program, how to promote it, how to get bookings, how to bill and how to get paid for your work.

Training requires a $1,000 contribution to our foundation for a team which can be 2, 3, or 4 people.

How much can you make with this program? It will depend on your team, but we get a $1,500 contribution to our foundation for a day in a school like the one described below. Certainly you will need to do ten schools at the $500 level to learn the program and ten at the $1,000 level to become really comfortable.

Your continuing obligation to us is to start a sub foundation and to pour over 10% of your income directly to Climate Change is Elementary. This lets us continue to develop the program for all our benefit. There is also a 6.5% administrative charge that keeps you from having to deal with any "admnistrivia." It covers your foundation registration, getting and keeping 501c3 status, bookkeeping, accounting, legal and all reports and government forms.

Also, please understand that we expect you to send us ideas and that this is not a top-down, headquarters-centered organization, but one that respects the experience and feedback from the field staff and will seek to incorporate these pearls into the program wherever feasible.

To find out more details about training - dates, lodging, meals, qualifications, how to set up your sub-foundation, and how this program benefits from our sister program, Juggling for Success please check the FAQ on this site. If you still have questions, please send an e-mail to davefinnigan@yahoo.com and we will send you information as soon as it becomes available. We have four training locations for 2010 - New Haven, Connecticut May 5-9, Sparks, Nevada (near Reno) August 1-5, Celebration, Florida, and the San Francisco Bay area with dates not yet determined.

Qualifications

One team member must be organized and must be willing to keep the others organized.
One team member must know the climate science backwards and forwards and must be able to make it easy for kids to understand.
Two team members must be comfortable with presenting in a fun and interactive way with kids from Kindergarten through 8th grade.
Everyone must be absolutely safe around kids, with no background problems and no issues that would get anyone in trouble.
Everyone must be totally acceptable to your average elementary principal, teacher and parents - no outlandish hairstyles, gross piercing, or behaviors that are offensive to the educational community.
Team members must be comfortable working with one-another without bickering or harsh words.
Team members must be willing to "be the change they want to see in others" by adopting a low-carbon life-style.
Team members must be willing to go to state level and regional conventions of teachers, parents and principals at their own expense and stand in the booth representing the program.
At least one team member must be comfortable on the phone calling schools and talking to teachers and principals about the program.
The team needs to own a portable sound system, an I-pod and a projector and a computer for the slide show. Schools provide the screens.
Teams must be willing to buy promotional brochures at cost.
Everyone who appears in a school must genuinely love kids and be able to relate to them with understanding and empathy.

How the day is structured

We start with a teachers meeting where the program is introduced and the day is explained.

Then our team takes over the gym or cafeteria for the day. Kids come in one grade level at a time for 30 to 40 minute classes.

The classes use music, movement, slides, dance, games and constant interaction. The kids are up and moving from the start. This is not a lecture or a slide show, it is an event - a happening!

Each grade gets a piece of the climate change puzzle. One grade becomes trees and critters in the rain forest. One grade becomes penguins waddling around Antarctica, and another becomes polar bears, crawling on the arctic ice. We have different fun and interactive games and activities that are appropriate for each grade.

We save 40 minutes at the end of the day for an all-school assembly. The kids come in to music. They dance, they sing and they get to show off what they have learned as they share their "puzzle piece" with the entire school.

Then the presenters tell the story of the carbon cycle in terms kids can understand with lots of movement and drama.

Kids get deputized as heroes and take a pledge to "Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle and Respect."

The kids go home pumped up to bring their families back to school that evening. We usually outdraw any evening event the school has ever had, bringing back 50 to 60 percent of parents.

Our evening program is a chance for the kids to show the parents what they have been learning. Then the whole family sits down on the floor together and comes up with a Family Sustainability Checklist that they take a pledge to follow.

If they do not already have one, from that day on the school has a green team that helps connect parents and kids to activities that save energy and water. To the extent that they wish teachers may participate in the program, however in most schools the PTA does most of the work. Teachers already have enough to do.

How to enroll

Please contact us and we will send you an official application.

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