To our fellow equity, environmental justice and climate justice advocates!

I hope that your transition into the school year has been kind, and that you and family are safe and well. I'm Lucy Garcia, retired LAUSD science teacher, now chair of the 5 month old Climate Curricula Committee of the Climate Reality Project Los Angeles.

Please consider being interviewed for this blog about climate reality and equity.

Have you read our materials? Do you have questions, objections, revisions or suggestions? Please, please email me. Climate justice education must be the result of collaboration across all our movements, or it will continue in the hands of forces that want to minimize and delay.

Read more: Why us? Why this group? Because 1) the educators, retired educators and principals, students, and activists who came together have a potent combination of passion and insider knowledge of the District, and 2) we can see the tide is changing about climate justice education and there’s money to launch this right no in the District.

A story: Fifteen years ago, I was leading an activity around the emotions that learning about climate reality brings up. I had Anger, Fear, Despair, Guilt, Sorrow...(you know the drill) and a 10th grade girl raised her hand and suggested Excitement. I repressed the urge to roll my eyes and I put it on the board. When I asked her why, she said, "We get to change EVERYTHING!" Her response illustrates not only her deep insight into how much in our culture and policies are connected to climate change, but also her courage, and her bright leadership.

Her response also illuminates a point our committee emphasizes: climate teaching needs to be moved decisively beyond STEM. Decisive action is no longer in the hands of science, but politics and culture, influenced by history, economics, language, literature, and all arts.

We know that there will be no solution to the climate crises without a deep process of reckoning and repair of racial injustice. We know that climate change is the most recent expression of the disposability of places and people. Earth urgently needs us to change that culture, from the root to the top. What can we do to support your work for equity and inclusion in education?

Our resolution envisions that every school has a planning committee of students, parents, teachers, administrators and community groups to formulate climate goals for the school each year. The ambitious work of teaching climate across the curricula will be supported by teacher trainings where they develop lessons related to local climate and climate justice issues, with the support of a citywide corps of Climate Advisors and in-school Climate Teacher Leaders, coordinated by a school- and community-based Climate Task Force in LAUSD. The Resolution envisions steadily increasing time in nature through school greenspaces and gardens, parks, and on field trips to beaches and mountains, as this will help our students sense their deep connection to Mother Earth who is always in the process of healing and invention.

Would your organization like to send a representative to our next committee meeting? Please text or email us: (818)618-3831, climate.curricula@gmail.com
Thank you for reading!