Be a Champion for the Environment
Remind Me LaterHelp protect wildlife and wild places, ensure clean air and water for all, and fight for environmental justice.
Donate Today!About Us
Who We Are
The Sierra Student Coalition (SSC) is a network of young people ages 14-35 organizing for climate, racial and economic justice. We offer training programs, popular education, leadership development opportunities, campaigns, resources, and a community of support for youth across the country to take action on the issues that they care most about.
Founded in 1991 as the youth led chapter of the Sierra Club, the Sierra Student Coalition has taken many different forms and roles in the environmental and climate movement from supporting youth in shutting down coal plants in their cities to advocating for a Green New Deal. One thing has remained constant since our founding - we have always believed in the power of critical education and training to create long lasting youth movements.
Over the last several years, the Sierra Student Coalition has made an intentional and important shift to supporting and being led by BIPOC, poor and working class people and young people of other communities and identities most impacted by climate change and interacting systems of oppression.
What We Do
The cornerstone of the Sierra Student Coalition’s work is providing training and tools for young people to fight for climate, racial and economic justice. Youth with varying levels of experience in organizing and activism usually hear about us through our training programs like Sprog and Climate Justice League.
Through these programs, they learn about climate and social justice issues, gain fundamental organizing skills, and deepen their understanding and embodiment of anti-oppression principles and practices. From there, members have the autonomy to decide how to put their skills to practice. This could look like supporting movements and campaigns in their local communities to leading one of the Sierra Student Coalition’s training programs and much more.
Trainings and Popular Education
You can find out more about our trainings and popular education programs here:
We also offer other issue and skills specific trainings throughout the year based on our campaigns and the needs of our community.
Campaigns
You can find out more about our campaigns here:
Our campaigns provide opportunities for young people to put their knowledge and leadership skills to practice through organizing actions, events, trainings and more.
History
In 1990, our founder Adam Werbach reached out to the Sierra Club with an interest in passing the “Big Green” initiative in California - an overarching piece of environmental legislation that brought together some of the environmental movement’s biggest policy goals.
Adam brought together a team of youth to campaign for the Green Initiative, which ultimately lost. Despite this loss, the excitement of these young people to continue their environmental activism carried on. In 1991, young people founded the SSC to carry on the momentum and continue training young environmental activists through summer trainings, the spirit of which still lives on today through our Sprog training program.
Since then, the SSC has trained up thousands of young people to take action for the climate and the environment. These young people have gone on to passing clean energy policies at their schools as part of the Campus Climate Challenge, to shutting down coal plants as part of the Beyond Coal Campaign and using their skills to organize locally outside of the Sierra Club.
Over the years, the SSC has learned from our history and the success, challenges and shortfalls of our previous work. We acknowledge that the SSC was founded by white, upper middle class, college educated young people. For many years our base largely reflected this demographic.
We recognize that we cannot build a just and sustainable youth movement with only those who have historically made up our base, which is why we continuously strengthen our commitment and practice to anti-oppression and anti-racism. For us, that means using the resources and privilege that come with being a part of the Sierra Club to support those most impacted by environmental injustice and multiple systems of oppression. For this reason, our leadership and our base has become majority Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and people from poor and working class backgrounds. BIPOC and youth with marginalized identities lead and shape every aspect of our work from overall strategy to curriculum design to event logistics to ensure that our work reflects the needs of their communities.