The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) celebrated the 2024 President’s Environmental Youth Award (PEYA) and Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators (PIAEE) at a major event in collaboration with the White House Council on Environmental Quality earlier this month. These awards are given every year to young environmental ambassadors and committed instructors who have significantly impacted environmental education.

During the ceremony, the EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan put emphasis on the importance of this recognition. “Every day educators and pupils in our country make remarkable contributions to environmental protection,” he said, “and it is an honor to be able to celebrate them today saying that the recipients are the gold standard for improving health and combating climatic change with their creative ways of teaching.”

Similarly, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Brenda Mallory said, “Environmentalism begins in classrooms where children and instructors are solving the pressing climate change and environmental justice challenges facing our planet This year’s winners are determined pioneers advocating for a better world against climate change, improving health, and equity for all.

This program that began in 1971 acknowledges K-12 youth environmental stewardship across the country through its PEYA. The program deals with numerous activities done by students, classes in school, clubs, camps for youths and organizations in creating environmental concern and protection in their societies.

PIAEE originated under the 1990 National Environmental Education Act and celebrates educators who bring environmental literacy into the classroom. This program raises the bar and gives recognition to teachers who do not restrict their teaching to the book, but bring their students out of the classroom, into their communities, and into active learning environments. PIAEE also honors not only teachers of environmental studies but also school administrators and LEAs by offering financial assistance to sustain the efforts of the teachers in educating the public in environmentalism.

Together with these awards, it emphasizes how important a contribution young people and educators make in supporting environmental protection, preventing climate change, and creating a better future.