Our History

One lesson on a hot June day in 2011 and just $70 in supplies led to many new adventures and growth each year. Read some highlights below:

2011: Founded with a single lesson in a Beverly, MA classroom.
2012: Governor Deval Patrick participates in and endorses the program.
2013: Receives a $100K Cummings Foundation grant and hires its first two employees.
2014: Awarded Excellence in Environmental Education from the MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.
2015: Reaches 250+ participating classrooms. Students make 11 million changes to lower their carbon footprint.
2016: Ranked the #2 Co-Op site, worldwide, for Northeastern University students.
2017: Awarded with the Sustainability Award for Outstanding Education Program with Proven Track Record by National Green Schools.
2018: Reaches its 20,000th student and receives a $100K grant from the Woodard and Curran Foundation to build SCiLL.
2019: Designs and begins building SCiLL, the Northeastern University longitudinal study begins, and Fidelity designs the web platform to track its actions around sustainability.
2020: Northeastern and Change is Simple’s initial study results reveal a strong impact in the classroom; launches an online learning platform in response to the pandemic.
2021: Celebrates its 10th year and wins generous grants from the Cummings Foundation, Project Innovation, & Braitmeyer Foundation.
2022: SCiLL shell is delivered, built out, branded and launched into schools in May & June! Almost 500 students visit SCiLL within the first half of the year.