Oct 7, 2008

Cousteau Joins Lexus Eco Challenge

Third-generation oceanographer and environmentalist Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, has joined the second annual Lexus Eco Challenge, hoping to inspire the world’s youth to make a difference and perhaps wear more rubber clothing. Last year, water pollution, vampire electronics and alternative energy were just a few of the topics more than 3,500 young people across the nation addressed in the Lexus Eco Challenge. An even larger response is expected for the 2008/2009 Challenge, an educational program and contest that is said to inspire and empower middle and high school students to learn about the environment and take a stand to improve it. The program offers a total of $1 million in grants and scholarships for winning students, teachers and schools.

“I met with Lexus a few years back because I was impressed with the company and wanted to explore how we could partner on spreading the word about my environmental concerns, so when I learned about the Lexus Eco Challenge, I was excited to participate,” said Cousteau. “I’m a believer that once people realize how simple it can be to help protect our environment, they’ll get involved.”

The Lexus Eco Challenge has two distinct elements: supplementary educational materials that encourage teachers to integrate creative lesson plans into their classrooms to help teach students about the environment, and a competition that rewards environmental action. Registration for the programs opened in September and will conclude with the announcement of the first-place and grand-prize-winning teams during Earth Month, April 2009. Middle and high school teams, composed of five to 10 students and one teacher advisor, are invited to participate in three initial challenges, each addressing a different environmental element -- land, water and air/climate. For each of the challenges, teams will define an environmental issue that is important to them, develop an action plan to address the issue, implement the plan and report the results.

Each of the three challenges will have 16 winning teams -- eight from middle schools and eight from high schools. The winning teams will each receive a total of $10,000 in scholarships and grants, to be shared among the students, teacher and school. In addition, the winning action plans will be featured on a special Web page to inspire other students to take action in their communities. In mid-February, the winning teams from the first three challenges will be invited to participate in the Final Challenge, which will result in cash prizes as big as $50,000.