LANCASTER, NY--(Marketwire - Apr 11, 2012) - Students from over 100 countries are now sharing their environmental projects and working together to solve global environmental issues through Project Earth (www.projectearth.net). Officially launched in the fall of 2010 by Ecology and Environment, Inc. (E & E), Project Earth is an interactive online environmental education platform that fosters global knowledge transfer by empowering students and teachers around the world to share their environmental projects with one another. To date, students from over 1,800 schools have posted more than 1,500 projects on Project Earth.
Projects posted include text, photo, and video components and range from local coastal clean-up activities, to reducing energy use in their schools, to creating innovative recycling programs. Through Google Translate on Project Earth, schools from around the world can review projects in multiple languages and send messages to their peers globally.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Former President of the Soviet Union, recently endorsed Project Earth, noting the positive impact that global collaboration can yield. "To achieve prosperity, innovation needs to be part of our culture," Mr. Gorbachev noted. "ProjectEarth.net enables students to participate in innovative projects around the world with passion and a willingness to share resources and knowledge to help create a better world."
Maurice Strong, the first Environmental Secretary of the United Nations in 1972, head of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and current senior advisor to the Rio+20 conference, has been a long-time supporter of Project Earth. "Project Earth connects our youth as one global community," he noted. "The Web site serves as an incubator of ideas and solutions to enable this generation to contribute to making our planet sustainable for all future generations."
"We're pleased and honored to receive the support of such influential global environmental leaders," said E & E president and CEO Kevin Neumaier. "Like us, they recognize that the ideas students share with one another and their global counterparts today will help shape the answers our world needs tomorrow in addressing the critical issues of changing climate conditions, threats to biodiversity, and constraints on water and energy resources. With an expanding network of schools and outreach initiatives in several countries, Project Earth continues to foster global sustainability by bringing tomorrow's environmental leaders together today." Recent outreach efforts have resulted in partnerships with key organizations worldwide including the Dŏga Schools network in Turkey, the Moscow Zoo, the Environmental Agency - Abu Dhabi, and the Green Education Foundation in the U.S.
Entries are currently being reviewed for Project Earth's annual U.S. Earth Day and World Environment Day contests. The deadline to apply for the U.S. Earth Day Contest is April 15th. For the World Environment Day Contest, the deadline is June 5th and winners will be recognized in conjunction with the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Go to http://projectearth.net/Home/ContestHistory for more information.
Headquartered in the United States, E & E has completed more than 50,000 environmental projects for a wide variety of clients in 122 countries, providing environmental solutions in nearly every ecosystem on the planet. The company is listed on the NASDAQ under the symbol EEI and is located on the Web at www.ene.com.