At the end of September, students from 50 school districts across the country flocked to Washington, D.C., to launch a new campaign to catalyze climate action in classrooms, school buildings, and in the labor market.
Among them was 17-year-old Ada Crandall, a seasoned youth climate organizer who recently graduated from Grant High School in Portland. Before heading to university, she took time off to work full-time with the Sunrise Movement, a national youth organization focused on combating the climate crisis.
Crandall, who local media has compared to famed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, spent her middle and high school years testifying on government committees and participating in local and national protests. She became involved in climate organizing while a student at Harriet Tubman Middle School, after learning of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s plans to widen Interstate 5 through the Rose neighborhood near the school. For the past three years, I have co-led the Portland Youth Climate Strike.
Her current job is to use that experience to train and support hundreds of students running Green New Deal for Schools campaigns across the United States. The students are asking school districts to make their school buildings climate resilient, formulate climate disaster plans, offer climate-inclusive curricula and pathways to green jobs and provide free, sustainably sourced lunches to all students.
“Students and communities have a tremendous amount of power when we come together and demand change from the government,” Crandall told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Portland youth climate activist Ada Crandall, 17, poses for a photo in downtown Portland. A recent graduate of Grant High School, Crandall works with the Sunrise Movement to train and support hundreds of students across the United States who are running Green New Deal for Schools campaigns.Kay Nellis
The youth efforts come at a time when climate science is under attack in classrooms in a growing number of states. And in Florida, the Department of Education has approved the use in classrooms of videos from the Prager University Foundation, known as PragerU, which attacks renewable energy sources and denies that the climate crisis is man-made. The Texas Board of Education asked schools to emphasize the “positive aspects” of fossil fuels like oil and gas in science textbooks and ignore that cutting greenhouse gas emissions could slow climate change. In Ohio, lawmakers are considering a bill that would require colleges and universities to teach “both sides” of climate change and other “controversial” issues.
The Youth Schools Campaigns are also supporting new legislation, the Green New Deal for Public Schools Act, introduced last month in Congress, which proposes investing $1.6 trillion over the next decade to create jobs, promote climate education, and eliminate carbon emissions in schools across the world. All over the country.
The legislation proposes creating an Office of Sustainable Schools within the U.S. Department of Education. Among other things, the new office will administer block grants for green upgrades in school buildings – including energy-efficient electric heat pumps, air and water filters and solar panels on school roofs – to reduce carbon emissions and increase student comfort. Grants will also be available for education programs related to climate resilience, including preparation for green careers.
Portland Public Schools is ahead of many other districts in Oregon and elsewhere when it comes to climate response, Crandall said. Last year, the district adopted a climate policy that pledged to prepare its schools for climate impacts, teach students about the crisis, prepare them for green jobs and reach net-zero emissions by 2040.
But Crandall said the district must do more and take action quickly, including teaching a comprehensive climate curriculum in every subject, not just science lessons, providing free lunch to all students, and ensuring that schools in low-income communities have the same amount of resources as Those in those schools. Wealthier neighborhoods and doing more to connect young people to green careers.
“We need to teach students that they can do something about this climate crisis and give them the tools they need to succeed,” Crandall said.
Portland Public Schools said the district agrees with students’ call for a Green New Deal for schools and that youth demands align directly with its policy.
Spokesman Sidney Kelly said via email that the region’s climate policy “provides a baseline and set of priorities” to identify concrete actions and set measurable deadlines.
“PPS is eager to work with our local agencies, state agencies and elected officials to raise the profile of climate action,” Kelly said.
Since the policy was passed, the district has updated technical design standards for new equipment and infrastructure, identified gaps in where and how students currently learn about climate change across subjects, pursued grants to purchase more electric school buses and launched “student leadership,” she said. Pathways” where students can help determine what school-level climate action should look like, among other things. The district also supports legislative proposals to allow schools in Oregon to provide free meals to all students.
Portland is among a few progressive cities, including Eugene, Bend and Lake Oswego, that have climate and sustainability resolutions, policies or curricula. But most of Oregon’s 197 school districts are small and rural and have yet to take action.
That’s why a statewide coalition of students and teachers, called Oregon Climate Education Educators, has led the charge to integrate climate education into all school districts in the state — not just in science classrooms but in all core subject areas from kindergarten through Class 12.
Their proposal, Senate Bill 854, died in committee this summer, but will be reintroduced with some changes, said Jinuj Khater, co-director of the coalition and a social studies specialist in the Eugene School District.
The bill, which has support from the Oregon Education Association, does not require districts to adopt a specific curriculum, but it introduces educational concepts and requires teachers to bring a climate lens to local climate-related issues affecting students in their communities, Khater said.
“What many teachers in rural areas expressed to us was a reluctance or unwillingness to teach about climate change because they did not feel they were legally protected,” Khater said. “They told us they would feel more validated, supported, and willing to participate in climate studies if there was legislative language that said they were not only encouraged, but expected to teach it.”
But rural teachers also told the coalition that using the phrase “climate change” in their classrooms or community could immediately shut down the conversation or limit student engagement, Khater said, so the legislation aims to focus instead on local issues, land management and green careers. As ways to enter the climate conversation. This could include looking at how to grow crops in drier conditions, building solar or wind projects in rural areas, or making extra money from carbon capture by storing carbon dioxide in the soil on farms and pastures, Khater said.
Crandall, the youth organizer, said focusing on green solutions and jobs is key when it comes to teaching students about climate change.
“Schools have the opportunity to frame climate change…as something we can take action on,” Crandall said. “The climate crisis is terrifying, but the way we talk about it in schools doesn’t have to be depressing.”
Read more about youth climate activism at The Oregonian/OregonLive:
Portland youth are organizing a climate strike, demanding action from the state’s federal leaders
A Portland high school student is getting the environmental justice attention of Oregon’s governor
The climate education bill, led by teachers and students, is highlighted in Salem
Climate change kids get ‘remarkable win’ in Montana court
NW Natural’s booklet for school children has become a flashpoint in the climate change debate
Listen to the full podcast episode:
– Josiah Wozniacka; gwozniacka@oregonian.com; @gosiawozniacka
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