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Get the Green Life Guide to Sustainable Living

Our Mission

Founded in 2006, the mission of TeachingGreen is to enable a sustainable future for life on Earth through comprehensive and empowering environmental education for all.

What is TeachingGreen?

TeachingGreen is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing environmental education for people of all ages and interests. Our mission is guided by three main Earth goals:

Raise awareness about our most serious environmental problems, both local and global
Encourage people to consider the environmental impact of their day-to-day activities
Help people adopt a lifestyle that sustains, rather than depletes, Earth’s natural resources

Whether you are a teacher looking for environmental presentations for your students, an individual wanting to live a greener lifestyle, or a business, club, church, etc. seeking a speaker to discuss sustainable living, we can help. We currently offer two programs: The Green Life for adults, and Growing Up Green for grades 9-12. A Growing Up Green program for grades K - 8 is coming soon.

The Green Life: Workshops for Adults

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” ~Native American Proverb

Tough economic times, asthma on the rise, mounting evidence of a planet in peril. If there was ever a time to “go green,” this is it. It seems that every day, there's a new gadget, strategy or website to help consumers save energy, water and other natural resources. Armed with these tools, adopting a truly eco-friendly lifestyle has never been easier.

At the same time, digesting today's flood of environmental news and endless lists of “Top 10 Things You Can Do to Save the Earth” can be overwhelming. Where to start? How to best spend your time, effort and money? Our Green Life workshops for adults take the mystery out of going green and help you make truly effective environmental choices.

At our Green Life workshops for adults you will…

Learn hundreds of hot tips to shrink your ecological footprint and save thousands of dollars per year
Meet others interested in living green
Feel good knowing you’re doing your part to protect the environment
Have fun!

The program covers the topics of Transportation, Food, Home & Garden, Solid Waste and Household Toxics & Hazardous Waste in a series of six workshops. We offer both public and private workshops. If you would like to attend our public workshops, please check our workshop schedule. We recommend that you attend all of the workshops in the series, but you are welcome to join us for any topic(s) that interest you.

If you represent a group of folks (for example, a business, church group, fraternity, etc.) interested in learning more about living sustainably, click here to schedule a presentation. We'll come to you! For more information about our Green Life Program for Adults click here.

Go beyond reusable bags and hybrid cars…start living the Green Life today!

Growing Up Green: Presentations for Kids

Grades K - 8: Coming Soon!

When it comes to protecting the environment, no one has more to lose than those who will inherit the planet that we leave behind: our children. We believe that children understand this and want a healthy environment for themselves and the wildlife that they love.

Focusing on the familiar principle of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, we encourage children to think about the impact that their day-to-day lives have on the environment and simple steps that they can take to reduce this impact. The result is engaging environmental education to help our children become thoughtful, responsible consumers.

Grades 9 - 12

As future consumers, voters, politicians, teachers and business owners, today’s teens have the power to create tomorrow’s sustainable society. Our Growing Up Green presentations for teens cover the what, why and how of green living in the areas of Transportation, Food, Home & Garden, Solid Waste and Household Toxics & Hazardous Waste . Teens learn the value of a healthy environment, and that they have the power to protect it through their consumer choices and everyday actions.

Who is TeachingGreen?

Kathleen Jacecko, Founder

Kathleen was raised in a household with one cardinal rule: conserve energy and water under all circumstances. These lessons in conservation, along with regular camping trips to Yosemite and other wild places in central and northern California, formed the foundation of Kathleen’s passion for protecting and restoring planet Earth and its many natural resources that are so fundamental to our way of life.

Kathleen holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Chemistry and a teaching credential from the University of California, Irvine. While an undergraduate student, she worked in the research lab of atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were depleting Earth’s protective ozone layer. Collecting air samples and analyzing them using gas chromatography, Kathleen gained firsthand knowledge about the detrimental effects of human activity on our air quality, and thus our lives.

Fresh out of college in 1996, Kathleen worked as an Associate Producer making educational software products. After three years of corporate life, she decided to put her passion for education to good use and became a teacher at Redondo Union High School, where she taught physics and physical science, and incorporated environmental issues into her lessons whenever possible. Then in 2003, she left teaching to pursue a full-time career in the environmental field, a path which eventually led her to found TeachingGreen.

Before securing full-time work in the field, Kathleen volunteered with Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Heal the Bay, two local non-profit organizations working on water quality issues. She assisted Algalita with a study of industrial sources of plastic in the ocean, and as a member Heal the Bay’s Speakers Bureau, she educated children and adults about ocean pollution. She then went on to work for the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust and Santa Monica Baykeeper, where as Public Outreach Director, she developed, funded and ran the Clean Water Act: Empower the People Program. Through this program, she educated hundreds of Los Angeles residents about the Clean Water Act and the importance of citizen enforcement of this powerful but often unenforced law.

Now, as Executive Director of TeachingGreen, the non-profit organization she founded in 2006, she is devoted to bringing comprehensive and inspiring environmental education to the public to help individuals and communities live lighter on the Earth.

Board of Directors

President - Kathleen Jacecko, M.S.
Executive Director, TeachingGreen

Secretary - Laura Bodensteiner, M.S.
Marine Biologist

Laura is an At-Large Director of the Mar Vista Community Council and serves as the Chair of the Green Committee for the Council. She is co-owner of Tickled Plum, an online boutique specializing in custom handcrafted stationery.

Treasurer - Michael M. Landman-Karny, M.B.A.
Sr. Finance Manager, Experian Inc.

Michael brings to TeachingGreen 18 years of accounting and finance experience.

Director - Dana P. Palmer, Esq.
Attorney, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Dana served as the inaugural staff attorney at Santa Monica Baykeeper where he helped defend a progressive plan to reduce trash in the L.A. River (the "Trash TMDL") and organized a statewide coalition against the use of once-through cooling at coastal power plants.

Advisory Board

Jim Aldinger
Former City Councilman, Manhattan Beach

Roger Fontes
Retired CEO and Environmental Engineer, Florida Municipal Power

Lillian Light
Board President, Environmental Priorities Network

Vanessa Poster
Board President, Beach Cities Health District

Dr. Alice Villalobos
Founder of Coast Pet Clinic of Hermosa Beach, Inc