ACE Action Teams

What is an Action Team?

An Action Team is an official club at a high school that is led by students who work closely with ACE to take action on the climate emergency at their school, neighborhood, town/county, or state! Action Team members receive the skills, training, and resources they need to become powerful climate activists. Action Teams when started in schools need a teacher advisor to help launch the official club and provide a room for regular meetings. Teacher advisors do not have any responsibilities for the Action Team other than talking with school administration if needed. ACE staff provide all the direction and programming for the teams. 

Action Teams can also be started outside of school if need be. As an example: instead of having an Action Team at Sheboygan South High School, we have an Action Team for the entire city of Sheboygan. These decisions are based on the interests and goals of the students as well as the ability or inability to secure a teacher advisor to launch the team at a school. ACE is currently starting and supporting Action Teams in Wisconsin, Ohio and Texas.

How do we get started?

If you are interested in starting an Action Team at your school please reach out to ACE’s WI State Director: Marco Marquez and schedule some time to chat with him over zoom. He will discuss with you next steps and ways to get a team launched near you! Link is https://A4CE.ME/ACE-Marco

If you have any questions please consult the FAQs on the next page, or write down your questions and ask Marco directly when you meet!

What do Action Teams do?

Action Teams understand that if we want to stop climate change we need to do 2 things: expand renewable energy in our state and our communities, and reduce how many fossil fuels we burn for our energy and electricity. 

Action Teams are led by anywhere between 1-4 students. Those students are required to attend ACE’s Weekly State Calls over Zoom that happen on Tuesday nights at 8pm CT. In these meetings we discuss and plan for how we can make progress on our goals and objectives at our schools, communities, or at the state level. We then go to our in-person meetings at school to work on the things we discussed over zoom. 

Action Teams get students and community members to sign petitions, show documentaries around climate change at school, fundraise for communities affected by climate change, secure lobby visits with our elected officials, host press conferences to spread awareness about issues we’re working on, and plan protests and demonstrations to build our campaign momentum! Take a look at all of the amazing things Action Teams in Wisconsin have accomplished already on the next page.

Milwaukee 1 Milwaukee 2
ACE Milwaukee Students at the Chicago Global Climate Strike in Sep 2022 ACE Students protesting the Komatsu Oil Spill in Milwaukee Dec 2021
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ACE Students from Milwaukee and Madison urging Gov Evers to Declare a Climate Emergency
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ACE Students urging the WI DNR to shut down the Line 5 Pipeline
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At MKE City Hall urging the common council to adopt the Climate & Equity Plan
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Lobbying State Rep Alex Joers Lobbying Gov Evers Policy Team: Wenona Wolf & Jacob Pankratz
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Meeting Congressman Mark Pocan and President Biden on the anniversary of the IRA

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Is the work students do political at all? Or Partisan?
    • ACE is a 501C3 non-profit organization: meaning everything we do has to be 100% non-partisan: meaning we cannot support any political party or any political candidate. We do not do any sort of campaign work, nor do we advocate for any person or party to win an elected office.
    • However, we do meet with and work with our elected officials to get things we want to see accomplished, accomplished! As an example: whether the Governor of Wisconsin is Republican or Democrat, he/she works for all of us, we are their boss! They have an obligation to listen to their constituents and do what’s best for us. We as their constituents have a right to tell them what we think and encourage them to do their job in a certain way. 
    • The things we advocate for are clean air, clean water, expanding clean and safe and cheap renewable energy, and reducing our use of fossil fuels. None of that is partisan in any way. Is it political? Yes. But getting a street light changed or a pothole fixed on your street is political, it’s how things get done, and it doesn’t have to be about party politics.
  • What are the benefits for students participating in this?
    • ACE Action Teams take small or large actions all the time. These count as volunteer hours that can be counted towards graduation requirements and other requirements for boys/girl scouts, religious requirements, etc.
    • Each team is led by between 1 and 3 high schoolers. Each student gets paid $500 if they lead an ACE Action Team for a whole calendar year!
    • Leading a team or organizing events and activities is great experience that can be put on a résumé for a job or a college application. 
    • Our State Director is happy to write letters of recommendation for college applications, and is willing to be listed as a reference for job applications!
    • ACE Action Team members receive training on grassroots organizing tactics like building petitions, tabling at community events, speech writing, communicating with press, textbanking, protest & campaign planning. 
  • How much work is this for students?
    • The work can fluctuate depending on what we are working on. But most regularly Action Teams are required to attend the weekly zoom meetings which last 1 hour, as well do another 1-2 hours of work outside of the zoom meeting. In total, most teams do a maximum of 3 hours of work each week. At a minimum it is just 1.5 hours of work per week.
  • How much work is this for teachers?
    • Very little!
    • Teachers are not in charge of thinking through what the students will be doing, that’s ACE’s job! Teachers offer their room as a space for the club to meet in person each week. The most work the teachers do is communicate with administration to get this to be an official club at the school.
  • My school already has an Environmental Club, what would we do then?
    • That’s great! A lot of our Action Teams were already environmental clubs when they started!
    • Nothing would change for you! Everything will stay the same except you will also be known as an ACE Action Team.
    • Business will run as usual, except every now and then you will have the opportunity to participate in ACE actions, events and campaigns! The leaders of the environmental club will be required to attend our weekly Tuesday night Zoom calls, which are also open for everyone to join.
    • A lot of environmental clubs are excited to become Action Teams because they don’t always know what to work on or are tired of only working on recycling drives or park clean ups. That’s where ACE comes in! We give you fun, exciting and impactful things to do that make a big difference on the fight against climate change!