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By now we’ve all seen the studies on “green teens,” trend pieces on eco-friendly campuses and stats revealing tweens who volunteer more than Mom and Dad. It’s official: this generation of youth has helped raised our collective environmental consciousness by leaps and bounds and made going green mainstream for brands.

On the 40th anniversary of Earth Day (an event bred out of environmental teach-ins on campus!) we thought we’d highlight some recent initiatives from youth media and orgs that inform, empower and (most importantly) mobilize these sustainability natives down the road to hopefully greener pastures. Feel free to leave more great campaigns and initiatives we may have overlooked in the comments!

Tweens

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to change. It’s not” Remember those immortal words of wisdom from the Lorax? How appropriate that kids and tweens can now enjoy them on a paperless platform. Oceanhouse Media debuts three new iPhone apps based on the book by Dr. Seuss: The environment-centric, The Lorax eBook releases today in conjunction with Earth Day; Lorax Garden, an environmentally-aware game for kids; and Dr. Seuss Senders, a series of 100 cards and quotes including the above.

Good, clean fun – Check out National Geographic Kids’ Earth Day related content featured on the site’s Green Scene. The site will also offer Earth and environment-centric games such as Recycle Roundup and Creek Cleanup, activities including Start Garden! and Camp out, as well as the story Drinking Water: Bottled or From the Tap?.

Green My Parents – launching this Earth Day (today), Green My Parents is a nationwide effort to inspire and organize kids to lead their families in measuring and reducing environmental impact at home. Not just on Earth Day, but every day. GMP’s initial goal is to have its first 100 youth advocates train and educate 100 peers (who will then turn to 100 of their respective peers and so on), with the aim of saving families $100 million between now and April 2011.

Teens

Think outside the [recycling] box – Back in February Teen not-for-profit DoSomething.org and HP announced an eight-week long “Increase Your Green” campaign to challenge teens to find new and innovative ways to conserve energy and reduce waste in their schools. The campaign encouraged teens nationwide to “green” their schools by developing creative plans to engage their classmates and address environmental issues at school. In addition to traditional green projects, such as recycling programs and community gardens, DoSomething.org asked teens to explore ways to use technology to go green. In addition too enlisting a panel of judges with eco-experience, the project called upon the star power of Nick Cannon to shoot a PSA for the initiative (see above) and evaluate entries based on creativity, innovation, reduction in waste, energy saved, number of students involved and, of course, the best use of technology. The winners received up to $5,000 in funding and an HP Artist Edition notebook to carry out their plan.

Inconvenient Youth – As reported earlier this week in Essentials, Inconvenient Youth is a new teen climate education initiative from The Climate Project, a program of the Alliance for Climate Protection. Inconvenient Youth will also enable five teens to participate in The Climate Project’s upcoming Our Choice Training with Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore, to be held in June. Appropriately, the youth-targeted offshoot was started by Mary Doerr, a 16-year-old presenter for The Climate Project who wanted to connect her own age group with the urgency of doing something about climate change. Mary’s work centered on adapting The Climate Project slideshow for a youth audience and touring the country to deliver a customized youth talk to students. Now, as Inconvenient Youth Manager Sam Davidson says in the release for the launch, “We are building a community – a place where people engage, encourage and empower one another to take action. We’re not broadcasting ‘green tips’ from on high; we’re creating a space where teens can share their ideas and their solutions.”

College Students

Who is the greenest campus of them all? – This is the latest criterion tackled by The Princeton Review, who in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), has profiled the most environmentally responsible campuses in the United States for “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges”. The guidebook is free (and available online!) and focuses on higher education institutions that have demonstrated an above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives. The Princeton Review helps students achieve their higher education goals through college and graduate school test preparation and private tutoring. From solar panel study rooms to the percentage of budget spent on local/organic food, the guidebook looks at an institution’s commitment to building certification using USGBC’s LEED program; environmental literacy programs; formal sustainability committees; use of renewable energy resources; recycling and conservation programs, and more. A handy resource considering the increased interest and subsequent growth in the “green collar” job sector and more colleges and universities beginning to incorporate sustainability into their programs.

Retro remix – For the 40th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, Repower America is releasing a new version of the rap “classic” (erm, one hit wonder?) “You Got What I Need” from Biz Markie on their YouTube’s homepage — featuring any brave soul willing to follow the brief instructional video and contribute their version of the Earth Day remix for the final video to be sent to the Senate. Like Biz Markie himself, volunteers weren’t required to have a perfect singing voice to help out (just lip-syncing or dancing worked too) and build support for clean energy and climate legislation.

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