YEPT’s mission is to amplify youth urgency on the climate crisis by supporting young people in producing journalistic content on climate and the environment and sharing it with their peers as well as the general public.
YEPT republishes climate- and environmental-related content produced by high school journalists in their school newspapers on our yept.org website, along with publishing original content. Stories include a wide spectrum of student-selected subject matter related to human impacts: invasive species, data centers, animal agriculture, renewable energy, global climate politics, and much more. Republication requires permission of writer and faculty advisor/teacher and nets the student $30. We also assign fresh content for our site: $100 or more for a new assignment, depending on complexity.
By 2026, over a dozen high school Directors represent 12 states that contribute to YEPT: California, Colorado, Texas, Nebraska, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, and Florida. We regularly publish writers from Iowa and California as well as the United Kingdom. Directors run YEPT, produce and edit stories, and promote YEPT content and the program itself on social media; each state Director is paid $1,000 per semester for this work. We want to grow to a national scale by the end of 2027, can you help us?
If you are interested in being part of YEPT, contact adult advisor Jim Poyser at [email protected].
Adult advisors:
Jim Poyser: Jim is Director of Advancement for Earth Charter Indiana and over his journalism career served as an editor at numerous publications, including The Bloomington Voice, Breeze Magazine, Indiana Living Green and NUVO Newsweekly. His essays were published throughout the alternative newsweekly circuit and beyond. For many years, he was a member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. YEPT is a program of Earth Charter Indiana, whose mission is intergenerational climate action.
Angela Yeager: Angela is the adult advisor for the Ohio YEPT Chapter. She has been an educator and climate activist for over 15 years. She resides in Ohio with her partner and children and when not mentoring students, she leads whale shark research trips to Mexico with the Vermilion Sea Institute.
Intern:
Jenna Talbot: Jenna is an editorial intern for YEPT for the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters. She is an undergraduate student at Indiana University Bloomington in Bloomington, Indiana, where she is studying journalism. Originally from Fishers, Indiana, Jenna took journalism in her junior year of high school and then joined her school’s yearbook staff her senior year. During her senior year, she was inducted into her school’s chapter of the Quill & Scroll International Journalistic Honors Society and was awarded an editorial excellence award for her work in her school’s yearbook.
We are grateful for support from Earth Rising Foundation, Glick Philanthropies, the King Family Foundation, and the Netherleigh Foundation, in growing this program.
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent, Youth Environmental Press Team (YEPT) wanted to create a policy outlining when we will and will not use AI. We are cognizant of the carbon emissions and water usage that come from AI, as well as increasing dependence on the technology. With that being said, YEPT would like to make a commitment to use AI as little as possible. The following points outline our policy:
- YEPT staff are permitted to use AI for transcribing audio files.
- YEPT staff will not use Grammarly or other AI grammar checkers to edit content.
- YEPT staff will not run a document source into an AI program to “summarize” it.
- YEPT staff will not use AI for research.
- YEPT staff will not use AI to come up with interview questions. Instead, they will consult with editors and directors.
- YEPT staff will not write stories, captions, leads, headlines, or any other content using AI programs.
- YEPT staff will not use AI to create graphics, illustrations, or social media content; nor edit photos.
YEPT will ensure that the use of AI is as limited as possible in republished stories. However, we cannot ensure that all content originally created for a different publication follows our AI policy at YEPT.