Centering the classroom on climate resilience
Their ultimate goal is to engage students in hands-on community building activities.
It’s part of a federally funded program to incorporate environmental lessons in classrooms that might not otherwise engage with those issues. For students who are already seeing the effects of climate change in their communities, the program aims to give students the tools and education they’ll need in the coming years, if not today.
“They really focus not on the doom and gloom but how can we be resilient,” Krueger-Koupal says, “and how can we adapt and help our community be more prepared to handle the challenges.”
“This is a problem that is going to require the energy of youth,” said Sarah Schoedinger, a program manager for NOAA. She says the action component is critical.
“By involving them in not only studying about the problem but also thinking about how they can make their communities more resilient actually can bring a sense of hope to what can seem like a pretty hopeless situations.”
As part of the program, students identify issues related to climate disruption, and come up with solutions on their own. At the end of the school year, students create a community-based project to help fix a problem caused by climate change. Last year projects included a rain garden and plant buffer strips, which help remove carbon from the atmosphere.
This year, students in Ypsilanti will partner with Ypsilanti City Council and the Ypsilanti Sustainability Commission. Organizers say they hope those partnerships will lead to sustainability and climate action plans in that community.