Green Team 2025: Brockton Youth Serve, Learn & Earn
A Green Team member builds a bench for the outdoor classroom at Raymond Elementary School in Brockton.
By Amy Burt, Programming Coordinator
Green Team returned to Brockton for a fourth summer in 2025 to work on projects at D.W. Field Park and the surrounding area. Wildlands Trust and Manomet Conservation Sciences sponsor, design, and lead Green Team to engage Brockton-area high school students in conservation service-learning.
Green Team crewmembers acquire skills in environmental management while learning about the city’s natural resources. Daily discussions with local professionals expose them to diverse career opportunities. Participants earn a stipend of $70 per day.
This year’s program garnered greater interest than last year, with 42 students applying. We were able to accommodate more crewmembers this year by offering two sessions of Green Team, one in July and the other in August. In total, 23 teens participated.
Green Team monitors birdboxes at D.W. Field Park in Brockton.
Crewmembers were hands-on every day, rain or shine. In addition to managing waste, painting picnic tables, collecting environmental data, and gardening at D.W. Field Park, the crew completed trail work at the new Fieldstone Preserve, helped build an outdoor classroom at Raymond Elementary School, and maintained the grounds at the Fuller Craft Museum.
We asked our teams what their favorite projects were and what they were most proud of accomplishing. There were a few themes:
Immediate gratification projects
Enhancing their outdoor skills through workdays and the campout
Team-building and making new friends
Green Team kayaks on Halfway Pond with the North and South Rivers Watershed Association.
Each Green Team session culminated with an optional overnight campout at Wildlands’ Stewardship Training Center in Plymouth. Attendees explored the area, cooked meals, and camped in tents. Nighttime hikes and bat echolocation games introducing the concept of dark adaptation were a (low-light) highlight. The July crew spent a morning kayaking on Halfway Pond with the North and South Rivers Watershed Association. The August crew enjoyed an exclusive tour of the Trevor Lloyd-Evans Banding Lab at Manomet Conservation Sciences. Wildlands and Manomet co-hosted these campouts for the second year in a row, enriching Brockton youth’s outdoor experiences through Green Team.
According to a post-program survey, 100 percent of crewmembers felt that Green Team will have a positive impact on their future. The top benefits they reported included learning about new jobs, finding better pathways into the environmental field, getting outside more, and making new friends.
Green Team smiles after weed removal at D.W. Field Park in Brockton.
When asked how Green Team might have an impact on their future, crewmembers said…
“I think it has impacted my future because I am considering doing more field science and working with people instead of lab science.”
“It will inspire me to be more conscious with my environment.”
“It helped me feel more comfortable working in nature.”
“I always knew I wanted an environmental career, and this experience solidified my opinion on the topic.”
“Now I think it's easy to make friends.”
Click through the photo gallery below for more sights from Green Team 2025.
A special thanks to Tim Carpenter, the City of Brockton’s Superintendent of Parks, as well as the following organizations and individuals who volunteered their time to engage with Green Team this year:
Brockton Garden Club
Blake Dinius, Entomologist, Plymouth County Extension
Brian Taylor, North and South Rivers Watershed Association
Clark Delisle, Environmental Police Officer
Cam Connelly, Environmental Police Officer
Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton
Sean Kent, Arts & Nature Education Manager, Mass Audubon
Sarah Howdy, Education Coordinator, Mass Audubon
Mass Climate Corps, Mass Audubon
Meghan Crawford, Community Engagement Biologist, Mass Wildlife
Molly Jacobs, VP for Environmental Ed. and Outreach, Manomet
Trevor-Lloyd Evans Banding Lab, Manomet
Julia Beyer, Intern, Manomet
Camille Beckwith, Intern, Manomet
If you or a young person you know is interested in Green Team 2026, sign up for Wildlands E-News and the D.W. Field Park email list! If you are interested in sponsoring the 2026 team, please contact Amy Burt, Programming Coordinator, at aburt@wildlandstrust.org.