Cooler Communities Education Programs

The Energy Detectives is an innovative picture book series, free for elementary teachers and all their students to take home. It was initially released in Massachusetts, then other states in the Northeast, with distribution now expanding across the United States.

Welcome to Cooler Communities’ Climate Fairs! Since 2019 Cooler Communities has partnered with schools, municipalities, volunteer committees, and businesses across Massachusetts to support climate learning in the classroom and climate action in communities. We provide school grants and curriculum guidance, and support districts in hosting community events that showcase students’ learning on a wide range of climate related topics. Families and community members visit the fairs and are encouraged to promise climate action...

How Shall We Live? Art shows feature the climate visions of high school age artists. These shows have run in the Berkshires since 2020 and are a collaboration of Living the Change Berkshires and Cooler Communities.

2026 marks the first climate art show in Springfield, MA.

Heat Seekers is a project-based learning program on passive building design. The primary goal is to improve teachers’ and students’ comfort by reducing summer temperatures in classrooms. First piloted at Duggan Academy in Springfield, MA, middle school students began by researching and testing passive cooling methods on scale models.