The Earth’s Birthday Project DBA Celebrate Planet Earth

Celebrate Planet Earth’s (CPE) mission is to grow children who love and protect the Earth, our home. Since our inception in 1989, when we began providing inquiry-based science butterfly kits to Head Start programs, CPE has been at the forefront of fostering equitable access to student-centered education about the natural world. Over three decades, our commitment to inspiring curiosity, joy, wonder, and delight in children has remained unwavering. We achieve this through a variety of engaging, easy-to-use life science materials, outdoor activities, and curriculum in English and Spanish. Our painted lady butterfly and sunflower kits, for instance, have become a staple in Pre-K and early elementary classrooms, offering hands-on, experiential learning opportunities that resonate with both teachers and students. CPE’s approach extends beyond the classroom. We empower parents and caregivers by providing them with seeds, bilingual storybooks about nature, and hand-knit butterfly and bee finger puppets. These resources are not just educational tools; they are invitations for families to embark on outdoor adventures, fostering a shared love for nature and an understanding of Earth’s complex ecosystems. Our bilingual early childhood programs, offering English-Spanish content in nature and life sciences, have had a significant reach. In the 2022-2023 school year alone, these programs were embraced by 13,100 classrooms, impacting approximately 290,000 children nationwide. This broad reach underscores our effectiveness in bridging educational gaps and promoting inclusivity. Here in New Mexico, our dedicated Northern New Mexico Program in Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties reached 198 classrooms and over 4,330 students in the 2022-2023 school year. Our presence in these communities has not only contributed to academic growth and social-emotional development of young learners, but has also deepened their connection to our incredible local environment. Our success is measured, not just in numbers, but in the stories of children who through our programs develop a lifelong relationship with, and commitment to, protecting our planet. As we look to the future, CPE remains steadfast in our mission to nurture and engage young people who love and appreciate the natural world and all of its diverse communities, watering the seeds for a more environmentally just world.