Opening Understanding & Taking Action for Our Natural World

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25 Years of Openings

Opening Understanding & Taking Action for Our Natural World

May 2022

In our second week of celebrating 25 Days of Openings, we're highlighting two of our favorite themes from the week, Opening Understanding of Our Natural World and Opening Action for the Climate. This week focused on how science educators not only support learning about the environment and how it's changing, but also instill in students the importance of doing something to change that. Through environmental actions however small, students can learn to value their environment around them and find joy in protecting it.  

Local Programs Make a Big Impact

There are a multitude of East Bay educators that love the outdoors, and share that passion with their students by starting clubs, school gardens, outdoor field trips, and more! John Iwawaki and Jay Cohen are two 

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In 1999, I started a program called The Escape Club at the middle school I was working at and we have been taking kids outside on field trips once a month for 20 years now. We’ve gone on over one hundred field trips now. I love taking kids outside but even in the classroom showing kids videos or demonstrating things, phenomena based instruction. We can share with kids what’s going on and have them wonder about “What’s happening?” or “How does that work?” “What are the mechanics of it?” “How can I explain that?” That works at any grade level..

- John Iwawaki, District Instructional Specialist for West Contra Costa Unified
 

Climate Literacy with Champions of Discovery

This school year, we received so many pictures from teachers inspired to get their classrooms outside and beautify their own schoolyard through gardening or picking up trash to take in and appreciate the plants, trees, flowers, and fields in their school community. These action based lessons were no small feat, and we're excited that many teachers have been recognized by local news outlets for their efforts in climate literacy education and environmental action. For more stories, see our blog on how Oakland schools started school gardens and discover how Berkeley schools incorporated Miyawaki forests into their school ! 

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Opening Environmental Action

Visiting local parks and gardens is one of the easiest ways to experience nature with others. But how do we share that passion and understanding for a beautiful flower or a healthy, budding tree? Oakland educators- including our own Eric Havel!- formed Oakland Goes Outdoors to share their take on what makes the variety of trees, plants, flowers, and critters so special in Oakland parks. 

Environmental Action can take place indoors too! The Clean Air project brought environmental action inside the classroom, using the Corsi-Rosenthal box, a box fan with a unique filter that will fill classrooms with clean, virus-free air. We interviewed one scientist involved, Emily Barnes, and here's what she thought of the project's impact:

 I believe I can speak for my whole teaching team in saying that teaching the students was an incredibly rewarding experience. I am so grateful to our teacher partners, for welcoming us into their classrooms and trusting us with their students. The students had lots of insightful questions during the lecture and the interactive filter-building portion. It was so rewarding to see how they combined engineering, teamwork, and artistic skills to make filtration units with their teams. We wanted to empower our students to feel confident in their ability to improve their own and their community's health through engineered solutions to air quality problems, and to encourage them to see themselves as potential future scientists and engineers. Environmental problems, especially those related to air quality or airborne disease transmission, can feel incredibly overwhelming as they are less straightforward to avoid or control control compared to other risks. With this project, we hope that we raised student awareness of the importance of air quality while simultaneously increasing their confidence and decreasing anxiety by giving them tools to protect themselves and their loved ones.

- Emily Barnes

Thank you so much to the teachers, scientists, and volunteers that helped prioritize climate action this school year!

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