About the Green Ninja

The Green Ninja is a climate-action superhero who fights global warming by inspiring informed personal action. A series of webisodes highlight the adventures of the Green Ninja as he negotiates some of the trickiest areas in climate science. Accompanying resources highlight the facts behind the webisodes and offer more detailed science for the interested individual. Also available, are educational resources for teachers to bring the Green Ninja into the classroom.

The Green Ninja project is a collaborative effort between scientists, educators, and artists to create compelling experiences that illustrate the connections between humans and our changing climate. The goal is to inspire personal action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The project is based at San Jose State University (SJSU) and includes faculty from the College of Science, College of Humanities and the Arts, and Spartan Film Studios. The Green Ninja concept was created by Babak Sarrafan, professor of film at SJSU.

Goal: To develop and promote Green Ninja educational materials that will be used in schools throughout the nation to improve climate-change literacy.

Mission: To promote informed personal choices and reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions by educating the community through webisodes and social media applications.

Background : This project is an SJSU collaboration between faculty, staff, and students from the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science (Eugene Cordero), the Department of Television, Radio, Film, Theatre, Animation and Illustration (David Chai and Babak Sarrafan) and the Spartan Film Studios (Barnaby Dallas and Nick Martinez). Most of the webisodes and content were created by SJSU students with input and guidance from the faculty.

Acknowledgments : Green Ninja Episode 1 was produced by students in RTVF 130 (Intermediate film and TV production; Prof. Sarrafan) and directed by Sarrafan and Martinez. The student artists for the animated projects include Marty Cooper (Footprint Renovations), Michael Fong (Supermarket Showdown), Michelle Ikemoto (What ʼ s the Bag Deal?), Aden Scott (Green Prix) and Joelle Murray (Reuser Cruiser). Animation student Jeanie Chang works on Web design, and Environmental Studies student Lina Prada-Báez works on content and presentation. Partial funding for the Green Ninja is provided by the National Science Foundation (CAREER grant ATM-0449996 for E. Cordero).

Note: The Green Ninja website is new, and we are currently building content and refining our existing material. We apologize for any errors/typos etc. If you do spot something, please let us know!