Ten Years Strong, Coast to Coast: Highlights from the 2026 EcoRise Student Innovation Showcases

What does over a decade of student-led sustainability look like? At the 10th Annual Central Texas Student Innovation Showcase, it looked like fifteen student teams at Austin City Hall presenting work that ranged from turning food scraps into chicken feed to redesigning how kids get to school. Projects this year covered real ground: improving erosion on campus, converting cafeteria utensils from single-use plastic to silverware, replacing bathroom liners with certified compostable bags, and building a solar-powered battery recharge station. A team from Eastside Memorial designed a mealworm farm that converts plant scraps into protein for the chickens already raised on campus, connecting three existing systems — cafeteria food scraps, composting, and the campus chicken program — into one cycle. Third graders from Odom Elementary brought their bikes to City Hall to present Vini, Vidi, Bici, a project built around a deceptively simple question: why don’t more kids bike to school? Their answers, and the solutions they designed around them, reflected the kind of systems thinking that takes most people years to develop.

The Austin Youth Climate Council rounded out the evening with a year’s worth of sustained civic engagement on full display. Council members worked alongside six community organizations throughout the year, including Environment Texas, Festival Beach Food Forest, Pecan Street Inc., Urban Roots, The Trail Conservancy, and The Village Place, building the relationships and context to extend that work beyond the classroom. At the showcase, they presented with the systemic knowledge and public speaking confidence of people who have spent a year living their work rather than just studying it. That spirit carried into the room’s final moments, when third-year Council member Elijah Scott spoke about the Council’s projects and the connections and the sense of ownership that comes from doing real work in community. The 10th Annual Showcase also marked a milestone for EcoRise as an organization: seven new board members joined the annual retreat and walked straight into the showcase, watching students present at City Hall. For new board members and longtime ones alike, there is no better introduction to this work.

San Antonio has a rising generation of advocates who understand their city and are ready to shape it. 14 student teams from across San Antonio gathered for this year’s showcase. They presented initiatives that ranged from hands-on campus improvements to community-scale advocacy and their teachers were proud to watch them present with the kind of confidence that comes from genuinely owning a project.

Students from Raba Elementary shared water-saving strategies for their school garden. A group of 4th and 5th graders from Helotes Elementary designed and launched a student-run chicken coop. The San Antonio Youth Climate Council brought some of the most complex thinking of the evening. Teams working on sustainable transportation and renewable energy and climate technology demonstrated a strong command of difficult, everyday challenges, including how federal and state policy has shaped transportation in San Antonio, and translated that research into actionable proposals for their city. Other council members distributed seeds and growing guides, raised awareness about local resilience hubs, and discussed emergency preparedness with community members.

EcoRise also honored H-E-B as EcoRise’s Texas Partner of the Year at this showcase, recognizing their sustained commitment to youth and communities across the state with more than $1 million invested over the past 12 years.

Legacy was the theme that ran through every corner of the 7th Annual DC Student Innovation Showcase. At Duke Ellington School of the Arts, 22 student teams from across the city presented their sustainability and community resilience projects to a packed house. And what stood out was not just the quality of the work but the intention behind it. Students are thinking about what they leave behind. This year’s projects included composting programs that students have brought into their homes, green roof designs, outdoor public spaces with measurable improvements in student health and wellness, and even a water audit presented by kindergartners. Across grade levels, these students are asking the same question: how do I leave my community better than I found it?

That spirit extended to the educators in the room. EcoRise honored sixth-year Teacher Ambassador Octavia Wolf, whose impact has stretched across four DC public schools over the last six years, during which her students received 16 Student Innovation grants. At each campus, Octavia has onboarded new teachers into EcoRise’s model, multiplying her reach well beyond her own classroom. This summer, she sets off for international teaching in Thailand, taking that legacy with her. The evening also featured remarks from EcoRise Board Chair Dr. Heather Hairston, who was EcoRise’s very first school principal in DC and is concluding her board term this year. She challenged everyone in the room to be bolder in supporting the change young people are already leading. Ten years into this partnership with DC Public Schools and more than $80,000 invested in student-designed sustainability projects across the city, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting person to issue that challenge.

Seventh-year EcoRise Teacher Ambassador Aimee O’Brien made history this spring, organizing and leading the first Student Innovation Showcase in Sacramento Unified School District and the first Ambassador-led showcase in EcoRise history. More than 30 students from Mark Twain Elementary, Bowling Green Elementary, and Caleb Greenwood Elementary presented seven projects ranging from curbing litter through a campus-wide educational campaign to installing garden beds, growing food, and activating peers as public space guardians.

The youngest presenters left some of the strongest impressions. Transitional kindergarteners from Mark Twain Elementary prepared speaker notes on notecards illustrated with pictures of what they wanted to say, then guided attendees down the halls and outside to show off the learning garden they built. It was the highlight of the evening. District leadership was in the room to see it, including Mikila Fetzer, the district’s head of curriculum and instruction, who spoke about the importance of giving students real opportunities to create change and take ownership of their place in their community.

Not every showcase this season happened under the EcoRise banner. From Miami to Pheonix, educators and partners took the initiative to celebrate student work in their own way, on their own stage, putting emphasis on EcoRise’s train the trainer model at work.

At Robert Renick Educational Center in Miami Garden, FL, fourth-year EcoRise Ambassador Laura Berenguer organized a virtual showcase that brought 15 students across grade levels together to walk local green professionals through the sustainability features they’ve built on their campus. The tour covered three highlights: the community garden, the student pantry, and the counselor carts funded this year as part of their Mental Health for Successful Days project. Students took the lead in presenting, fielding questions, and sharing their work with energy and pride.

Students and teachers at Austin Elementary in Galveston, TX, spent the year learning alongside each other, getting outside, trying new foods, and making real-world connections through nature-based experiences as a part of the Growing Galveston program, funded by EcoRise’s first NASEM grant. They got to share their learning journey at the Austin Elementary Health and Science Showcase, hosted by EcoRise and Groundswell. Health was the thread running through the evening, with classes exploring topics ranging from healthy eating and gardening to mental health and well-being through displays, artwork, and interactive activities. There was even a photovoice exhibit facilitated by the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture exploring the impact of outdoor and garden-based learning through photographs and reflections.

In Phoenix, AZ, the first-ever Canopy for Kids End-of-Year Showcase, hosted by Arizona State University College of Global Futures, brought together educators and students to share the work they’d done all year to bring more shade, learning opportunities, and climate resilience to their school communities. Participating schools designed and planted shade trees, installed rain gardens, engaged students in hands-on STEM learning, and explored the role urban forests play in building cooler, healthier neighborhoods.