High school educates teenagers, giving them knowledge and skills to succeed in life – and now EWG+HS is making environmental health advocacy yet another strength.
Launched in 2023, EWG+HS is building a community of student leaders who want to create a healthier and safer world for everyone. Students in the program can work alone or in small groups, or form an EWG+HS club to pursue tailor-made projects and activities. They’ll learn about core environmental health issues, explore EWG’s extensive resources, and advocate for environmental health in their schools and communities.
The program offers a range of guided activities, such as decoding labels on personal care and cosmetic products with EWG experts, testing your school’s water for potential contamination, and mining EWG’s lists of recommended books and movies to learn – through real life stories – about pressing environmental health issues.
Advocacy is key to addressing those issues, as EWG’s track record shows. Since our founding over 30 years ago, we’ve scored a wide range of victories: getting pollutants out of drinking water, spotlighting inequities in farm subsidies, and informing consumers about harmful chemicals in their cosmetics, among many more.
EWG+HS will help ensure similar successes in the future by educating students about critical issues and training them to use the tools and strategies they will need to affect powerful change.
Using EWG’s many resources
EWG’s work is rooted in scientific data and research, but we also reach millions of people each year with user-friendly consumer guides and tools that people regularly use to help them make safe, healthier decisions.
Through EWG+HS, students will have access to these resources at a younger age than adults learning about our work.
EWG staff and experts can also train students on how to use our guides and other resources to make positive change in their schools and communities. This includes showing them how to conduct research and collect environmental data that forms the bedrock of advocacy.
High school students learning how to live healthier and safer lives helps make them more aware of issues like drinking water contamination and exposure to toxic chemicals through cosmetic and personal care products.
The first cohort’s focus
EWG+HS’s founding cohort represents four schools in San Francisco’s Bay Area. At EWG’s Earth Day Dinner in April 2024, these students were honored for their work as environmental health champions and changemakers.
In a video presentation at the event, the students detailed their work and accomplishments, inspiring the gala’s audience – work that is now reaching students around the world.
Several students shared that they were motivated to join EWG+HS to learn about which chemicals are in cosmetics they use, and their potential health risks.
Peyton Spaht, EWG+HS’s founding student member and current senior at Convent & Stuart Hall, started the club to reach all students who care about their environmental health, no matter their level of familiarity with it.
“EWG+HS is for any student interested in environmental health issues, or looking to affect change in their school community or trying to make informed, safer choices for their own health,” Spaht said.
Chemicals and pollution exposure touch almost every aspect of a student’s life, and the Bay Area cohort is helping to educate their peers on these risks, demonstrate how to live healthfully and safely, and improve their schools and communities.
How to get involved
While EWG+HS is designed to help educate and activate student leaders, it can also help connect parents, teachers, caregivers and others with the resources they need to learn more about the environment and their role in safeguarding it.
Any students or schools interested in launching an EWG+HS project or club can email[email protected] to learn more or to get started.