Empowering Tomorrow’s Green Leaders: CAPS Program Manager Oversees Student-Guided Sustainability Projects in Petaluma and Modesto Schools
With student-guided projects focused on energy use, waste management, and air quality, CAPS is welcoming a new chapter in our with Modesto City Schools and Petaluma City Schools to create a more sustainable future. CAPS internships provide work-based learning opportunities that help students gain skills and learn about the growing field of green jobs. Our internship programs also help school districts improve their sustainability through strategies that focus on driving down greenhouse gas emissions with cost-effective and healthy solutions.
To support this work, we are excited to welcome Juli Miller to the team as the program manager for Northern California school districts. In this role, Juli is connecting student interns with community partners to advance data-driven sustainability initiatives that provide students with a peek at green careers through hands-on experience with energy efficiency, waste reduction, and air-quality projects. “I always had an interest in working with students and pairing that with environmental education,” she says. “Finding CAPS was the perfect marriage of my values. I love the fact that this program gives students hands-on experience, connecting them with sustainability professionals and allowing them to build this network and skills all at the same time at such a young age.”
As interns, students get a peek at green careers through project-based learning in sustainability — hands-on experience with energy efficiency, waste reduction, and other climate action initiatives. “I’m glad to be a part of it and to help students be able to make their way into the green sector,” says Juli, who is hitting the ground running with several projects in Modesto City Schools and Petaluma City School.
Modesto City Schools: Energy, Air Quality, and Waste Management
Students gather as they prepare to conduct an energy audit.
CAPS is currently working with 20 student interns in Modesto City Schools on three objectives: enhance the energy efficiency of several schools, recommend projects to improve local air quality, and design a waste management model to standardize recycling and composting practices in the district.
The energy objective builds on last year’s energy data collection and focuses on five sites: one energy-efficient model site and four energy-intensive sites. Juli says students will conduct audits, and propose recommendations with the hopes of eventually developing an energy dashboard for real-time data monitoring. “This would allow district staff to monitor everything from solar panel generation to HVAC timers, and be able to look at energy usage in one place and control it from there,” Juli says.
In a collaborative process, students will use a CAPS energy audit outline and gather information from school district officials. Juli emphasizes that students have agency throughout the process. “Students are in a leadership role,” she says. “I might give them suggestions along the way, but ultimately I’m pushing them to do the research and come up with their own recommendations.”
The air quality monitoring project builds on a CAPS partnership with UC Merced and the San Joaquin Valley Air Quality District. It will give students a chance to perform essential tasks for environmental data collection. “They’re learning the [importance] of air quality as well as how to do air-monitoring technician skills,” Juli says.
With the waste management audit, students will tackle challenges, including improving district-wide recycling and composting programs. Students will begin with a baseline audit of existing efforts—which Juli says will involve students and school staff across all 34 schools—and explore the potential to standardize recycling and composting efforts.
“We have one model already identified of a school that has really strong practices,” Juli says. “So we want to try to use that school and where schools are currently to design a theoretical model for the district.”
Petaluma City Schools: Energy Efficiency, Plastic Reduction, Waste Management
Students from Petaluma City Schools at their CAPS internship orientation in October 2024.
This is the second year CAPS has worked with Petaluma City Schools, which has 12 school sites serving about 7,000 students. This partnership seeks to advance district sustainability with students taking the lead of climate-conscious restructuring and inquiry.
The 15 CAPS student interns in Petaluma are jumping off of their previous energy baseline data to perform a deeper dive into the least efficient school campuses. The project will involve analyzing energy usage data, identifying inefficiencies, and developing actionable recommendations to reduce energy consumption across these sites.
Petaluma students are also working to design a pilot program in collaboration with the district’s food and nutrition services to minimize plastic waste from school lunches. This project involves testing compostable packaging materials and reusable items to make school lunches more sustainable across the district.
Interns will collaborate with utensil and packaging producers and Recology, the local waste management company. “They're trying to bridge the gap and make sure that all types of packaging are going to be either recyclable or compostable on the waste management side and feasible on the food nutrition services side,” Juli says. “Another part of the goal is actually measuring the amount of plastic that's being produced.”
Petaluma student interns’ final project is to support a waste-sorting campaign at secondary schools in another partnership with Recology. While elementary schools have successful recycling and composting programs, middle and high schools tend to struggle with consistent sorting practices, Juli says. This initiative will involve educational outreach to re-establish lunch-waste sorting, including in-person guidance and waste management metrics to measure success.
Juli says this program will include reminders of the important role that individuals can play in sustainability efforts. “Students all want to do well and be better, especially when it comes to environmental action,” she says. “You grow up nowadays with a strong understanding that things could be a lot better and that we all have to do our part.”
Petaluma interns will also reach out to their peers through surveys and focus groups to capture student voices on environmental issues and priorities. “Students can get that unique perspective, so we really want to try to tap into that,” Juli says. The goal is to gather input from middle and high school students on climate action and environmental education within the district. Juli says those insights will guide the district's climate strategies and ensure they are engaged in the decision-making processes.
The ongoing and future initiatives in Modesto and Petaluma reinforce CAPS’s commitment to preparing students for green careers and supporting school districts as they build their sustainability efforts. To keep up with the latest and support CAPS:
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