Student Leadership

Apply for CBF's Student Leadership Program

Three Tenets of Student Engagement

• Students make up their own minds on issues.
• Students feel empowered and possess a sense of accomplishment.
• Students advocate using their own voice and personal experiences.

How CBF Increases Student Engagement in Environmental Issues

Students have an incredible ability and opportunity to help improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. A student's voice is powerful and when students speak in unison their message becomes amplified. Our goal is to inspire students to use their voices to speak for their generation and support them in advocating for issues that speak to them. We can't save the Bay without you!

Our Student Leadership program combines CBF's strengths in education and advocacy to

• provide immersive field experiences that honor differing perspectives and demonstrate that solutions to ecological issues are often complex,
• give students opportunities to work with scientists, elected officials, farmers, restoration experts, and educators,
• teach students how to lead others in taking action to improve their local communities' environmental health,
• assist students and their schools with their outreach to news media and social media.

The Five Core Components of CBF’s Student Leadership Program

• Student Leadership Summer Expeditions: Explore to Learn. Learn to Lead.
  These 5-day field experiences offer students the opportunity to expand their knowledge of watershed issues through immersive outdoor field experiences and engaging with regional experts. Applications for our summer 2023 programs are now being accepted.
• Student Leadership Confluences: Creating a vision for advancing Bay advocacy, action, & awareness.
  These are weekend strategic planning and skills development conferences for Student Leaders from across the watershed and take place during the school year.
• Rally Your Reps Events
  These are opportunities for Student Leaders to meet with their state or federal representatives to advocate for watershed issues that are meaningful to them or to say thank you for continuing legislative support of these clean water issues.
• Professional Development
  Training and opportunities that provide Student Leaders with skills development in fields such as public speaking, advocacy, civic engagement, community outreach, public awareness campaigns, etc.
• Student Project Resources
  Our student project resources page has activities and guides for students to lead environmental stewardship and civic action projects on their own. If you are planning a project or have already started one, let us know! 

Contact us at 410-268-8816 or [email protected].
  

Student Leadership Affiliates

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation Student Leadership Program combines two of CBF's organizational strengths: education and advocacy. Ultimately, our goal is to foster lifelong engaged, ecological citizens. We would like to honor and recognize the following programs and schools that do the same, allowing students to realize their connection to the environmental world and empowering them to act on its behalf. They are our CBF Student Leadership Affiliates.

Student Leadership Highlights

Blog: One Amazing Week and the Next 50 Years

Blog: The World Is Your Oyster by Matthew Talley (external site)

Audio: The Beauty of the Bay a poem by Garrett Chiaramonte

Action: Hellbender Campaign CBF's Pennsylvania Student Leadership Council drafts legislation to make the Eastern hellbender the Commonwealth's state amphibian.