Future City Competition (DiscoverE)
Middle-school teams design a future sustainable city (essay, scale model, presentation) addressing a yearly challenge (e.g. waste-free, climate adaptation). Runs through regional competitions feeding a national/international final.
Explicit REGIONAL competitions (e.g. New Jersey, Texas, Pacific NW) sending winners to nationals - geographic-region brackets where one region's schools cheer their representative.
Each team must include a teacher, an engineer mentor from the local community and pupils - schools recruit local civil engineers, planners and architects to mentor, creating town-wide adult/youth collaboration.
Long-running, well-evidenced, multinational - rarely mentioned alongside Eco-Schools/Big Pedal but uses exactly the regional bracket + local-mentor coalition pattern.
Others in the same family
STADTRADELN (CITY CYCLING)
Run by Climate Alliance, a 21-day campaign where municipalities sign up to compete on per-capita and absolute cycling kilometers. Mandatory team affiliation; tracked via the CITY CYCLING app GPS or paper log.
Klima-Taler
City-branded climate app powered by motiontag that auto-detects walking/cycling/public-transport trips and converts CO2 saved into 'Klima-Taler' coins redeemable at local pools, museums, shops. Each participating city gets its own white-label instance; users join open teams.
Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel (formerly Big Pedal)
UK's largest inter-school active-travel challenge run by Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (Sustrans). For two weeks, schools log every walked, wheeled, scooted or cycled journey via a school portal; a school's best five days determine final position on a national leaderboard, with badges and certificates.
Green-Schools Ireland (An Taisce) - county Green Flag awards
Ireland's national Eco-Schools programme, co-run by An Taisce and individual county councils. Schools work through themed Green Flags (litter, energy, water, biodiversity, travel, global citizenship) over 2-year cycles, with county council prizes and ceremonies.
Schools Recycle Right Challenge (Planet Ark) + Battle of the Schools
Planet Ark's National Recycling Week schools programme provides activity guides and event ideas; in regions like Hervey Bay (QLD) Express Recycling runs a Battle of the Schools where schools compete by weight collected with $500 cash prizes.
STADTRADELN (CITY CYCLING)
Run by Klima-Buendnis (Climate Alliance), 1.2m+ Germans log kilometres cycled over a self-chosen 21 consecutive days between May-September. Although billed as a climate campaign, it doubles as a population-level physical-activity intervention - municipalities sign up officially and their citizens, employers, schools and local councillors form teams. Stuttgart 2026: 8,809 participants, 1.8m km.