However, despite dire predictions of the impacts of climate change, the topic has yet to make it into mainstream education in the South Florida classroom. Education has the potential to play an important role in achieving that goal. To prepare for a future of increasing environmental hazards, communities will need an informed public that is willing to act on decisions on a personal and civic level. The goal of the Climate Resilience Education and Action for Dedicated Youth Program (Climate READY Program) is to increase the environmental literacy of South Florida students, teachers, and the general community so they can become more resilient to extreme weather and/or other environmental hazards. As students help design community-based green building projects, they will consider scientific uncertainty, cultural knowledge, and social equity, in the real-world context of improving community resilience. They will gain real-world learning experiences and career exposure by directly engaging with scientists, civic leaders, green building professionals, and NOAA data and staff. Through school-year field experiences and paid summer internships, students in the program will use established scientific evidence, citizen science, and an understanding of location-specific socioeconomic and ecological factors to explore current and future extreme weather phenomena and other environmental hazards facing their communities. Texas-based nonprofit EcoRise, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Texas Marine Science Institute/National Estuarine Reserve System of NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management will lead this robust, three-year project beginning in Central Texas in Year 1 and expanding into Houston and Texas Gulf Coast communities in Year 2. In the process, students gain valuable green career skills and credentials and become part of a green building school-to-job pipeline that will help contribute to a more diverse workforce. The Building a Green Texas (BGT) project helps address these concerns by giving high school students opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to tackle challenges posed by climate change. Furthermore, the very communities that feel the effects of climate change most acutely have been historically underrepresented in the fields of sustainability and green building. Climate change disproportionately impacts low-income and otherwise marginalized communities that typically have the fewest resources to adapt.
0 kommentar(er)
