isten to “Here is our conversation with Lessa Carter-Jones, President and CEO of Captain Planet Foundation. Green Heart STEM Challenge Launches…” on Spreaker.

ATLANTA, GA — The Captain Planet Foundation recently announced the launch of the 2026 Green Heart STEM Challenge, welcoming its largest cohort to date with nearly 5,000 students, 132 educators, and 71 schools across 11 states participating. 

The Green Heart STEM Challenge is delivered through a hybrid model, with in-person programming in metro Atlanta, Houston, and Miami, alongside virtual participation that enables schools in additional states to engage fully. This structure supports deep, place-based learning in core communities while expanding national access.

Designed for students in grades 6–9, the Challenge blends STEM learning with real-world problem solving, guiding students to identify environmental challenges in their communities and develop practical, implementable solutions. It follows a rotating, four-year cycle focused on EARTH, WIND, FIRE, and WATER, ensuring students explore a broad range of environmental systems and solutions over time.

The 2026 Challenge features EARTH, with students exploring issues such as soil health, tree canopy, composting, and food waste. Educators onboard students to the Challenge platform, where teams form, research, and begin building solutions rooted in local needs.

“What sets this Challenge apart is that students are mentored and funded to implement their winning ideas,!” said Leesa Carter-Jones, President and CEO of Captain Planet Foundation. “They’re not just learning about environmental challenges, they’re designing solutions and being held accountable for real outcomes.”

Since its launch, the Challenge has shown growing, measurable impact. In recent cycles, hundreds of student teams have progressed from ideas to formal project plans, with an increasing percentage advancing to implementation. Past winners have secured additional funding, expanded beyond their schools, and built long-term community partnerships, including teams in Atlanta and Houston continuing work well beyond the Challenge timeline. Across cohorts, student-led projects have tackled composting and food waste, erosion control and reforestation, water quality, repair-and-reuse systems, and circularity efforts reducing fast fashion and single-use waste.

The Challenge is supported by Accenture, Amazon, Delta Air Lines, Georgia Natural Gas, Green Mountain Energy, and Susan J. Klein, among others. Accenture employees also serve as volunteer mentors and project managers, helping student teams refine ideas, develop budgets, and prepare for implementation through the Challenge’s Idea Incubator.

Entering its fourth year, the Green Heart STEM Challenge continues to show what’s possible when students are trusted with real responsibility, and supported to turn ideas into action.

About Captain Planet Foundation
Captain Planet Foundation is an award-winning U.S.-based nonprofit that empowers young people to be problem-solvers for the planet. Over the past 35 years, more than 1.7 million children have directly participated in CPF programs, supporting more than 3,700 projects and impacting 11.4 million young people worldwide. Founded in 1991 by Ted Turner and Barbara Pyle, CPF advances environmental education through programs including Project Learning Garden, Planeteer Alliance, and the Green Heart STEM Challenge. Learn more at www.captainplanetfoundation.org.

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Stuart Shanker is renowned for using cutting-edge neuroscience to help children feel happy and think clearly by better regulating themselves. In his new book, Reframed, Shanker explores self-regulation in wider, social terms. Whereas his two previous books, Calm, Alert, and Learning and Self-Reg, were written for educators and parents, Reframed, the final book in the trilogy, unpacks the unique science and conceptual practices that are the very lifeblood of Self-Reg, making it an accessible read for new Self-Reggers.

What is self-regging and how can it get you through COVID19 behaviors including:

Panic Buying, Hope, Comfort Foods, Care Mongerin, and much more

Only a society that embraces these principles and strives to practice them, argues Shanker, can become a truly just society. The paradigm revolution presented in Reframed not only helps us understand the harrowing time we are living through, but inspires a profound sense of hope for the future. Shanker shows us how to build a compassionate society, one mind at a time.

“What if there existed a book with a masterful integration of contemporary neuroscience, research on human development, educational theory, and philosophical thought? What if this knowledge was reinterpreted from the perspective of stories about children and what fosters or holds back their developmental potential? And what if the journey led to the conclusion that it is possible to create a genuinely just society? That book is in our hands now, and it is up to us as a society to make the choice to follow its wisdom.”

―Alan Fogel, Professor of Psychology Emeritus University of Utah and author of Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self-Awareness (W. W. Norton, 2013))

“This is a beautiful book, brimming with hope. Through Self-Reg principles and vivid real-life examples, Shanker explains what a Blue Brain/Red Brain balance is and how parents, educators, and coaches can help young children and teens achieve it.”

―Barbara J. King, Department of Anthropology, College of William & Mary, Author of How Animals Grieve

“In Reframed: Self-Reg for a Just Society we join Stuart Shanker on his personal journey to redefine age-old questions related to the capacity of humans to regulate their behaviour.”

―Stephen W. Porges, PhD, Distinguished University Scientist, Indiana University, Professor of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, and originator of the Polyvagal Theory

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Listen to “Cristal Glangchai, Whats keeping girls out of STEM? Why?” on Spreaker.

Girls at a very young age are curious about science and math—about 74% of kindergarten girls want to go into STEM—but by the time they reach middle school, only 15-20% remain interested.

Scientist, author, and professor Cristal Glangchai, PhD, attributes this to the way educators, parents, and the media talk to girls about pursuing STEM careers. She argues that a key part of raising strong, confident young women is giving them the tools of entrepreneurship to engage in STEM.

Glangchai’s new book, VentureGirls: Raising Girls to be Tomorrow’s Leaders (HarperCollins; May 2018) explains what has kept young girls out of STEM fields, as well as the practical applications of STEM learning, and how we can address the gender imbalance therein.

Dr. Glangchai offers a unique solution based on her own experience as an engineer and entrepreneur as well as the founder of VentureLab, a nonprofit that empowers kids, especially girls, with an entrepreneurial mind-set. VentureGirls.

Dr. Glangchai can discuss or write about the following:

• Women and STEM: How, as of now, women make up only 29% of the science and engineering workforce. Dr. Glangchai can share her fundamentals for empowering young girls in STEM.

• How STEM Education Impacts Entrepreneurship: Dr. Glangchai explains how science teaches kids about failure, and why learning to embrace failure is the key to entrepreneurial success.

• Creating Young Entrepreneurs: 65% of kids will have jobs that we cannot even imagine today. How parents can and should encourage kids as young as 5 years old to embrace their innovativeness and entrepreneurial mindset.

Publishers Weekly recently called VentureGirls a “game-changing guide to empowering young women.” The author has been featured on the TODAY Show, NPR, Wall Street Journal, TEDx, and much more.

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