Climate change collage

Climate Action Teams

Connecting state-wide to make a difference
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Climate Action Teams

As a group, we are concerned about Climate Change and how it is affecting the planet. We are banding together, across the state, because Climate Change is such a large issue, it requires us all to pull together as one.

Our Charter:
CATs volunteers work together to develop, deliver and gain Master Gardener adoption for projects which address issues caused by our rapidly changing climate. Our climate change initiatives are bounded by our horticulture & environmental stewardship Mission and our emphasis is to provide research backed educational outreach and solutions to some of today’s pressing problems driven by climate change.

Join CATs

Meetings

Climate Action Teams (CATs) meet every-other-month to create and execute projects to enhance our program offering related to climate change. This zoom meeting is open to all Master Gardeners who want to pitch in and work on climate related projects.
Washington Education & Climate Action Network (WECAN) is a parallel organization comprised of WSU CAHNRS educators and others. We also meet every-other-month, on the alternate month from CATs. The focus of these meetings are to grow our network by inviting climate related organizations to present what they do so that we can learn more about them in pursuit of forging a lasting relationship between our various organizations.

CATs

Climate Action Team banner.

WECAN

Jump to our website to learn more about WECAN and to see the upcoming meeting schedule

Go to WECAN

Climate Related Presentations

To develop presentations for state wide use, CATs pioneered a “peer-review like” process for vetting the content of our presentations. Each presentation is checked to ensure the climate science is valid. In addition, the presentations adhere to WSU branding, copyright and distribution policies.
Officially, the following presentations are “WSU Extension Master Gardener APPROVED”. We call the process getting “Badged” for short.

Learn more about getting 'Badged'
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Cover page for the Reimagining Your Lawn presentation

Reimagining Your Lawn

Synopsis: Presentation for homeowners who are considering removing their lawn. Covers the historical basis for lawns, why they can be damaging to the climate and expensive to maintain, then surveys potential lawn alternatives.

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The Resilient Yard

Synopsis: One hour presentation for homeowners who want to know what simple steps they can take in designing and maintaining their yard to battle climate change. The presentation is broken down into sections on climate change, lawn maintenance, garden bed design & growing veggies.
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Protect our Pollinators

Synopsis: One hour presentation for homeowners to help them understand the importance of adding pollinator plants to their garden beds and the positive effect this has for native pollinator species.

Presentation title slide with picture of vegetable garden

Vegetable Gardening with EASE

Synopsis: One-hour presentation covers why it helps the climate if you have a home kitchen garden and then walks through climate-friendly ways to undertake vegetable gardening
First page of the More Trees, Please presentation

More Trees, Please!

Synopsis: One-hour presentation covers the need to re-forest urban and suburban areas in order to increase tree canopy and cool cities. Review of several successful projects creating mini forests in urban areas.
First page of Climate Ready Plants presentation

Climate Ready Plants

Synopsis: One hour presentation that covers native plants vs. cultivars and ‘nativars’ and how they handle our changing climate. Includes a list of ‘Climate Ready Plants’ from a University of Washington study.
Download Presentations from our Climate Change Library

Spreading the word:

Reimagining Your Lawn

March 12th. Dogwood Garden Club of Eatonville, WA (Southeastern Pierce county). Good session with a number of gardeners in this rural area seriously c…

More Trees Please

12/9/2025 – Gray Harbor and Pacific County MG Founders via Zoom It was a good opportunity to obtain feedback on the presentation from MGs. They …
If you have delivered a Badged Presentation, please fill out this form.
Complete list of delivered presentations

Become a ‘Badged’ Presenter

Cat paw print in sand

With a growing catalog of Badged, climate related presentations, we now need to grow presenters for these presentations. We need presenters in every county in the State. If you are interested in becoming a presenter, we are interested in helping you get there:
– For those with experience presenting. All Badged presentations come equipped with Presenters Notes. You simply pick your topic and download the presentation from the Climate Change Library, get comfortable with the content and notify your Speakers Bureau of the topic you are ready to present.
– For those in need of a little more background. Where available, in the library, we have included a video of the presentations being delivered so you can watch and learn. Further, all Badged Authors are willing to be your mentor and answer your questions. You can reach them through the Contact form (below).

Download & View Presentations from our Climate Change Library
Contact Badged Author
Record Badged Presentations Delivered
News articles from WSU

If you want to become a presenter of any of the ‘Badged’ presentations, please first get approval from the person in charge of presentations in your county, either your Speakers Bureau Lead or your County Coordinator.

Additional potential projects

Project Leads Needed. Below is a carousel of project ideas that have been floated by CATs volunteers. CATs is fully staffed by Master Gardener volunteers. There is no ‘adult supervision’, it is just us. So, if any project is to take flight, it needs to have someone willing to lead it.
If you would like to take the lead on any of the ideas listed below, or if you have an idea of your own and you are seeking other CATs to join you in getting it launched, send us a note and we’ll start you down the path.

Lead a Project
Volunteers raising their hands

Plant Sale Merchandising

The Idea. Curate a list of climate related products for sale at our various plant sales. Native Plants; Keystone Natives; Lawn Alternatives; Organic Fertilizers; Peat-free potting soil…. these items and more can be ‘packaged’ into an area inside our plant sales to better inform the public, and to help people realize that the Master Gardener Program is a place to go to learn – and do – more about our changing climate.

Ask-a-MG Information Packets

The Idea. Our Ask-a-Master Gardener ‘Clinics’ are the place where the public comes to ask us questions. Increasingly, we are getting climate related questions. It would be nice to have a package of materials developed that address the most commonly asked climate related questions. We can use the ‘Badging’ process to vet the climate science and produce information that can be downloaded by interested counties.

Newsletter Content

The Idea. Many counties create their own content to reach out to members of their community. We could supply each county’s newsletter publisher with articles on climate themed topics. We can use the ‘Badging’ process to vet the climate science so we’re delivering a quality message to the public. One key is to find the right set of topics that people would be interested in reading.

Youth Gardening

The Idea. The next generation of gardeners are the ones who will have the biggest environmental stewardship tasks due to climate change. Let’s get them started early by developing classes that introduce them to the concept of climate change and its impact on our gardens.

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Throughout this site there are links to documents of various file types. Please contact our Statewide Program Leader if you require this information in a different format.