Boston Latin School Youth Climate Action Network's Education for Sustainability Program

Youth CAN students and the Youth CAN program has had an incredible impact since January of 2007 when BLS Youth CAN was founded as an after school climate change and sustainability club by students at the Boston Latin School. From the outset BLS Youth CAN students have been committed to outreach & education. They founded a youth network that now has 20 member groups at schools across Massachusetts. Within 4 months of their first meeting, students had raised $5,000.00 selling CFLs and used the money to fund their first global climate change summit at MIT. The Annual Climate Summit and Education for Sustainability Campaign: Since then they have planned & hosted 4 annual summits, marking the conference as Youth CAN’s signature spring event, and reaching hundreds of youth and educators each year. In 2008 Youth CAN students won funding enabling them to issue 10 action grants to fund teen-led climate action projects. BLS Youth CAN students also launched their Massachusetts Education for Sustainability Campaign, a statewide effort to develop and integrate sustainability curriculum across disciplines in grades 7-12. They formed a coalition with adult partners to help them in this pursuit. In the summer of 2010, Youth CAN invited 34 teachers from 17 schools to spend a week learning how to integrate education for sustainability curriculum into their classes culminating in the development of an EfS pilot currently being implemented at the Boston Latin School. Eventually the plan is to promote the 7-12 interdisciplinary pilot at other schools in the state by means of the youth climate action network. Leading the Way in Greening Schools In Massachusetts: In 2009, after having an energy audit at BLS, the students began to develop a strategic plan to comprehensively green the oldest school in the country and share it with other schools statewide. The long-term goal is engaging students & educators in learning that will instill a sense of stewardship for our shared planet and cultivate important understandings and habits that promote sustainability. By going green from the ground up students hope to model a wide variety of ways that other schools in Massachusetts could choose to modify their own energy systems and use. Students have committed to sharing all their learning though the BLS Youth CAN website. The Centerpiece: A State-of-the-Art Green Roof & Community Learning Center - BLS Youth CAN students proposed an innovative green roof that will be shared with the rest of the community and include outdoor classrooms, a green house and gardens all aimed providing a setting in which students will engage with the big ideas of sustainability, such as systems thinking, interconnectedness and interdependence. BLS Youth CAN has formed several partnerships with area youth and adults to ensure that structures are in place to encourage offsite schools to access BLS Youth CAN’s Sustainable Roofscape and Community Learning Center for a field trip. Web cams will enable offsite schools to stream real time footage from the roofscape featuring many of the green technologies on the roof and download corresponding data sets for classroom use. Education for sustainability curriculum will pair with the roofscape and also be accessible online. Community Presence: The students have developed an amazing presence in the community. They have formed numerous community youth partnerships, testified at public hearings, held the only youth seat on the Mayor's Climate Action Leadership committee, led workshops, all the while pursuing their vision for increasing sustainability in Massachusetts with a focus that most adults don't have. The students have created countless videos and PSA's promoting their efforts. They have competed in every competition they can find in support of their work, and won most of them. Their impact has been and continues to be nothing short of remarkable, reaching thousands of students & adults each year. Educating for Sustainability: Early on Youth CAN students recognized that what they wanted more than education about climate change & more than just environmental literacy. They were seeking a broad shift in which educators in all classes would begin to teach their particular content in ways that would address and promote sustainability. Students began to regard the big ideas of sustainability as the perfect overarching theme for organizing course content whether it be math, economics, foreign policy, government, history, etc., Youth Leaders & Partnerships: BLS Students have partnered with other youth to ensure that the projects will be shared & successful. Energy Performance Contracting: BLS Youth CAN students proposed a collaboration with Codman Academy Youth CAN and Boston Latin Academy Youth CAN to ask the City of Boston School Facilities department to implement energy performance contracting that would put in place energy saving measures at the three schools as a pilot for eventually bringing energy performance contracting to the entire Boston Public School System. BLS Youth CAN students raised $7,500.00 that they will donate to the City as seed money to jumpstart the initiative. Green Youth Jobs: BLS Youth CAN students are pursuing collaboration with Dorchester Bay Youth Force and Boston Youth Environmental Network in sponsoring a Summer Green Youth Jobs Program that would pay students to learn how to do home and school energy audits and carry them out at their school. College/High School Coalition: Youth CAN students founded a coalition of colleges and high schools in the Fenway area seeking to green our respective institutions. Individual groups will pursue their green roof projects and become part of the first green roof enclave in Boston. Youth CAN hosted a design Charrette with Studio G Architects and several of the colleges in the coalition in November 2010 focused on greening our respective campuses from the ground up and starting with Go Green Grow Green Student Edible Gardens. Mentoring Program: Youth CAN students launched a mentoring partnership between BLS Youth CAN students and 5th grade students at the Philbrick Elementary School guiding them in pursuing sustainability initiatives as leaders at their own school based on BLS Youth CAN experiences. Students have also partnered with adults to help guide them.