This Is Ours is an enrichment program for young people that combines digital photography, storytelling and illustration to communicate personal knowledge about one’s local environment. This hands-on workshop and book series, created by students for students all over the world, provides tangible proof to students that they have something important to say, and the global community is their audience.

Working alongside our e² education & environment team of art, science and humanities educators, participants develop skills and language to create original material that documents the world around them. Once designed and professionally printed, these distinctive books are exchanged around the globe.



The power of This Is Ours programming is that students engage in the exploration of different environments, discovering the similarities that tie us together globally, while celebrating first hand what makes us unique.

When a school partners with e² education & environment and This Is Ours, students create and receive books in the This Is Ours series, to be used in libraries and classrooms around the globe.

“I personally have liked this project a lot because it made me learn a lot from our teachers who were with us. Without them I would not be able to use a camera or speak English like I am using now. I have learned that our environment is very important in our life today because without it we could not survive.“



Throughout the This Is Ours workshop program, students work collaboratively to identify topics that they believe are most important to teach others about their home environment. Water usage, medicinal plants, transportation and agriculture, are just a few of the topics students have written, illustrated and photographed for their books.

As students report on their environment, they gain a wide variety of visual literacy skills:

* Basic digital photography*

* Communication skills

* Writing, interviewing, and editing

* Illustration and drawing*

* Analysis and critical thinking

* All materials provided by  e² education & environment  


Students gain skills related to environmental science, as they:

* Identify and classify factors that shape their environment: human, industry, nature, production, geography

* Explore environmental conservation

* Identify patterns in environmental relationships

* Observe and record qualitative data about their community

* Investigate past, present and future human relationships with their surroundings

* Analyze and predict cause and effect relationships


Engaging in this peer driven program, student gain social skills:

* Working collaboratively

* Risk-taking; personal initiative

* Public speaking, confidence, leadership



Students become published authors, as their full color printed book joins the This Is Ours series.

Each individual participant will be given a book that they can take home.

All partnering schools are given a class set of the complete series of This Is Ours books for their school library, receiving updates as new volumes are created.

Please visit our virtual store on Blurb to preview the books in their entirety. The words and images will speak for themselves

To learn about a book or to purchase a copy, click on the book cover below