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By Austen Needleman  Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash By now, many of us have experienced the impacts of climate change like wildfires, floods, drought, heat waves, storms, and more. These experiences make it vital to talk to young people about climate change, but can also make it more challenging, as the topic is linked to traumatic experiences and anxiety.
Here are a few tips to talk about climate change with young people in a trauma-informed way, whether you are an educator, parent or anyone else. Do talk about it! Discussing climate change is hard. We want to protect children from scary topics, and we may feel ill-equipped to have difficult conversations. But climate (mis)information is everywhere, leaving children with the impression that it is too late for action or that their future will be bleak. Youth need trusted adults to share information in an age-appropriate way, and talking about trauma is an important way to address it. You can start by allowing young people to share what they know, ask questions, and express their feelings.
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By Beatrix Berry  California Climate Action Corps Fellow Jhakarin with site supervisor Nancy From wildfire mitigation workshops, to education on waste diversion regulations, California Climate Action Corps Fellows have been hard at work in their communities. SEI has partnered with California Volunteers and Bay Area Community Resources to support the California Climate Action Corps(CAC) program. The current program year has been filled with success stories and positive impacts as this powerful cohort of fellows have supported their communities in climate action and solutions.
CAC Fellows are placed throughout California and work primarily with communities who are being disproportionately impacted by the changing climate. In Redlands, California, three fellows, Calhoun, Bryan and Jenny, are currently working on the University of Redlands farm. In the area surrounding their site, there is little to no tree cover and therefore very limited shade. As a result, in the changing climate, their community and community members struggle to stay cool. These three fellows are working to cool down their community by increasing access to trees that can be planted by those who live in the area. Calhoun, Bryan and Jenny, have worked hard to raise saplings and organize events to give them to the community for free. Jenny and Bryan are returning fellows and have been able to continue their impact this year. In a recent event they gave away 2,230 tree saplings to their community. By Hannah Maryanski Kiszla  SEI is pleased to announce the publication of “Recommendations for Building Energy Modeling Education in California,” a report prepared by SEI for Southern California Edison, in cooperation with the California Building Energy Modeling (CalBEM) collaborative, a building energy modeling (BEM) stakeholder collective and an annual statewide event hosted by Southern California Edison on behalf of the California Investor-Owned Utilities.
Building energy modeling is key to realizing building energy savings and is relied upon for California energy code compliance, high-performance building design, energy efficiency retrofits, and more. These different projects create demand for trained building energy modelers. Recognizing the importance of training this workforce, CalBEM partnered with SEI to research current BEM education offerings, identify essential knowledge, skills, and abilities for building energy modelers, and provide recommendations for future BEM education directions. By Katherine Chen
These two questions guide Heltzel’s teaching at Chabot College, where he serves as an adjunct English professor and partner in SEI’s Energize Colleges program. Heltzel also teaches English at College of San Mateo and Berkeley City College, and co-leads the climate education nonprofit Teach Earth Action (TEA)
Despite taking environmental science classes in school, Heltzel recalls not being taught about “the big picture of climate change” until he took an astronomy and poetry class - coincidentally, at Chabot College. After reading The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells and the 2018 IPCC report, Heltzel remembers the fear and panic of recognizing “the totality of climate change” for the first time. In response, he made two decisions: first, to teach about climate change in his classes; and second, to switch to a vegan diet. Today, not only do Heltzel’s students learn about Shakespeare; they also learn about issues that impact them, their communities, and the planet. In order to substantially address the climate crisis, “We need every teacher in some capacity focusing on this issue.” What can that look like? Heltzel begins by asking, “What’s the work that needs to be done?” In April, SEI’s Marin School of Environmental Leadership (MarinSEL) hosted its annual Green Business Leaders Event: Collaboration in Action at Terra Linda High School. The event brought together local environmental and green business leaders, as well as, teachers, friends, and families to highlight the innovative sustainability work of the MarinSEL students; and to showcase the eight student-led sustainable businesses they created. As part of the School of Environmental Leadership (SEL), 11th grade students are given the opportunity to develop and implement sustainable businesses from start to finish through the Sustainable Enterprise Course, which qualifies for college credits. Throughout the course, students create business plans for a sustainable enterprise, which they then pitch to a panel of mock investors who select the top eight ideas to be implemented. Then, using their collaboration and project management skills, students work in groups to create and carry out an implementation plan for their sustainable businesses. The product of their dedication and hard work is showcased at the annual Green Business Leaders Event. The end-of-program event also provides the opportunity for students to network with established green business leaders and innovators within the sustainability field.  Sophia Smulewitz from Free Spirit Suds: Clean Earth, Clean Body presenting their product to attendees.
By Alexis Fineman  For the past several months, seniors at LaFayette High School in LaFayette, Alabama have been learning about energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy sources as part of the 2022 PowerUp! Energy Challenge. In partnership with SOLV Energy and Heart of America, SEI facilitated a series of weekly educational challenges to get students “powered up” about energy in their lives and communities while also introducing students to the solar job market. The Challenge was launched in February with a kick-off assembly featuring alumni guest speakers Dr. Travis Smith with Unite HBCU, who builds pathways for high school students into HBCUs and from HBCUS into the workforce, and Devon Mackey, a solar project manager with SOLV Energy. It culminated in a multi-week Campaign Challenge. Through the Campaign Challenge, students created educational posters and graphic designs to promote conservation and efficiency measures in their communities. Campaign judges included the Chambers County School Board president Jeffrey Finch, LaFayette mayor Kenneth Vines, Chamber of Commerce director Carrie Royster, and Taylor Teel, the director of Camp Marranook.
First place winner ShaKerya Gunn receives a prize (left) for her Energy Challenge submission (right) Over 30 students in LaFayette’s senior class participated, and throughout the Challenge, these students experienced the support and encouragement of their communities. Students dove deep into topics of energy, resiliency, and sustainability; explored solar careers; and were asked to consider how they themselves could be agents of change on a warming planet. Of the 30 participants, SEI awarded 12 finalists SEI’s Energy Specialist Certificate. The first, second, and third place winners received scholarship awards of $1500, $1000, and $500 respectively, as well as an array of Goal Zero solar products.
By Hannah Maryanski  Summer is approaching, and if you are in high school or early in your college career, you might be thinking about starting your green career search over the break. Congratulations on taking the first steps! Here are 4 tips for finding a career in the environmental space.
Identify your interests Environmental educator, renewable energy engineer, construction worker, community organizer, sustainability specialist—these can all be green jobs, and they’re all really different. It can be hard to know where to start when the field is so broad. Try narrowing in on a few areas that interest you. The SEI Green Careers Webinars Series can help by providing knowledge directly from sustainability professionals about their day-to-day work and career paths. Labor market research from tools like California Career Zone can also help. Labor market information gives you general characteristics about jobs, like the type of education required. It can also show you what jobs are expected to pay well or be in high demand. If you are interested in a career that doesn’t show up in your green jobs search, don’t worry! Let your creativity shine as you think of new ways to bring sustainability into any career path. By Dru Marion This fall, after a year of remote learning, SEI's Climate Corps Education Outside Fellows worked to rehabilitate the campus gardens at their schools and bring students back outside for garden class. Thanks to our cohort of twenty-nine incredible Fellows, thousands of students are once again getting the opportunity to engage with inquiry-based, hands-on science and ecoliteracy lessons during the regular school day and directly on their own school campuses. We hope you enjoy these snapshots joy, growth and (re)discovery in the school garden classroom: By Katrina Hagedorn  Image by Trang Nguyen Climate change is not just an individual issue, state problem, or national concern. It is one of the greatest challenges the world has ever faced.
The current workforce is not ready to undertake the challenge of transitioning to a clean economy. Additionally, marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change. Given both of these issues, SEI aims to strengthen leaders across communities and integrate environmental justice, equity, community engagement, and collaboration into all of its programs. Our Climate Corps program has been doing this work in collaboration with communities across California for over a decade. We are excited to announce that we have been expanding Climate Corps into new areas to help drive a national workforce transformation! One such area is the Pacific Northwest, including the state of Oregon. Within Oregon, a diverse group of organizations has partnered to develop the ‘Oregon Climate Equity Project,’ which will broaden the climate movement in the state and strengthen BIPOC leadership in climate policy, advocacy, and development. In the Project, five Climate Corps Fellows focused on climate justice within BIPOC communities will be placed with nonprofit organizations and public agencies serving Oregon. Our partners on this project include Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI), Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), Climate Solutions, Coalition of Communities of Color (CCC), Earth Advantage, Forth, the Oregon Environmental Council, and Verde.
What does a resilient world look like to you?
To quote Aldo Leopold, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” While written decades ago during a very different time on Earth, Leopold’s words guide my thinking about what a resilient world looks like - A world that has human-designed systems that support the needs of both people and the planet. A world with systems that are centered on equity. A world with systems that are powered by renewable energy, have zero waste, and build strength and resilience from diversity. As the people lucky enough to be alive during this pivotal time in history, we have the opportunity to reimagine those systems to ensure that we are resilient in the face of a changing planet. |
The SEI TeamEnvironmental education and workforce development experts share stories from the field Archives
August 2022
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