Summerbridge Environmental and Ecological Discovery Seminar: Environmental Justice Education and Community Service Learning

SEEDS: EJ is a curriculum for rising 9th graders that I designed two years ago, implemented last year, and redesigned in anticipation of this summer. The goals of the program are that students will understand and apply an environmental justice framework to environmental issues happening close to home. Environmental justice asserts that everyone, regardless of any cultural factor (including race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status), has the right to a safe and healthy environment. Our students, who are low-income students of color from San Francisco public and parochial middle schools, often live in neighborhoods suffering from environmental injustices. Students will be able to widen their definition of the environment, discuss and define environmental justice using local examples, and analyze and compare different neighborhood environments by touring three different neighborhoods: one affluent, pristinely developed neighborhood and two neighborhoods suffering a disproportionate burden of environmental hazard exposures. Students will also work in an urban community garden based at a San Francisco high school to further engage in the community and reflect on the citizen's role in addressing environmental and social injustices. This work will culminate in a final project done by the students to present the general concepts of environmental justice and how they apply in San Francisco to an audience of peers and family members.  You can read more about the hosting non-profit organization, Summerbridge San Francisco, at www.summerbridgesf.org.       We are requesting a grant to help us cover the costs of these fieldtrips.  We are relying on local non-profits to lead some of the programming for our students, and they require a stipend for their efforts.  We will also use the grant to cover the cost of any supplies that we need for our gardening project or for snacks for the students after they have worked in the garden.