As the school year comes to an end and summer is in full swing, we want to reflect and share all the resources that Ten Strands and our partners have created this year. From perspective articles that uplifted our community to new reports being released, this year has been marked by collaboration, innovation, and a shared commitment to sustainability and environmental education. Join us as we celebrate and share these milestones and look forward to the exciting opportunities in the coming year!
California Environmental Literacy Initiative (CAELI) Projects
Green Careers Report
The Green Career Innovation Hub of CAELI is advocating for creating a statewide strategic plan to secure equitable access for TK–16 students to the high-growth, high-quality green careers essential to a sustainable future. On June 20, we launched the “Call to Action: Educating for a Green Economy” report in a live webinar! You can watch the recording here.
ELA Superheroes Podcast
CAELI’s English-Language Arts Working Group released a four-part English language arts (ELA) podcast featuring educators who share real classroom stories, innovative teaching strategies, and practical resources. This podcast is designed for a wide range of listeners, including teachers, students, community-based partners, and families. It’s for everyone to listen, enjoy, and find something useful for our day-to-day lives. You can explore the podcast and teacher snapshots on the CAELI website. Happy listening!
Webinars
One Thursday every month, CAELI’s District Innovation Hub held webinars showcasing the work of inspiring, equity-focused leaders in environmental literacy and school sustainability. The webinars covered topics ranging from funding strategies and troubleshooting challenges to district-wide sustainability and connecting facilities, operations, and student learning. The hub hosted a total of eleven webinars this year! You can find all the recorded webinars and PowerPoint slides here.
Climate-Ready Schools Coalition
This spring, we launched a partnership with the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) and UndauntedK12 to support district and county leaders with resources and tools for climate resilience.
We have been highlighting practices and tools, such as the “Open Door Learning Sessions” created by leading districts and county offices of education through webinars and “Spotlight” posts to the CCEE website:
- Open Door Learning Session—Preparing for a New Normal: Climate Emergencies and Their Impacts on Schools
- Spotlight—Climate Change and Emergency Management: How the San Mateo County Office of Education Helps Districts and Schools Become Climate Ready
- Open Door Learning Session—Energy and Grid Resilience: Mitigating Risk through Climate Adaptation
California Youth Climate Policy (CYCP) Leadership Program
After the successful completion of CYCP’s first cohort and with cohort two currently in session this summer, we want to reflect on their journey while also sharing resources and stories from the past year!
- In last month’s newsletter, we highlighted CYCP’s journey to cohort two, where we shared data and student testimonials! Check out the story here.
- Check out the CYCP Alumni Changemaker Profiles—this series is a collection of conversations with alumni youth leaders in the environmental literacy and school climate policy space. We interviewed students from CYCP cohort one to document their experiences and update us on the progress of their advocacy campaigns initiated during the CYCP leadership program. You can read Sathvika Arumilli and Nupur Bhalla‘s profiles and watch their interviews on our YouTube channel. Stay tuned for more changemaker profiles coming in this summer!
Will Booth, a former climate corps fellow at Ten Strands, wrote an article celebrating cohort one’s graduation, highlighting the program, and its potential long-lasting legacy of youth-driven environmental literacy.
Climate Change and Environmental Justice Program (CCEJP)
Exciting updates for CCEJP! With new staff onboard and the curriculum on its way, there is much to look forward to in the 2024–2025 year.
- In May, Deborah Cogan joined Ten Strands as a production manager for CCEJP, collaborating with the writing teams to prepare the materials for release to the public in spring 2025.
- With the completion of the curriculum project approaching, we are thrilled to announce that middle school teachers are currently demoing an interdisciplinary eighth-grade unit. The June demo received overwhelming support from our community, leading to a waitlist for the July demo! You can access the waitlist here or learn more about the upcoming instructional materials on climate change and environmental justice.
- Read Milton Reynolds’s article as he reflects on the CCEJP writing retreat in late 2023.
Outdoor Learning Initiatives
School Garden Coalition
Our recent launch of the School Garden Coalition supports school gardens of all types—edible, native habitat, and pollinator—and recognizes gardens as important to students’ equitable access to environmental literacy and outdoor education. We are thrilled to announce that the Coalition’s website is now live.
Campaign for Outdoor Learning
We launched the Campaign for Outdoor Learning, designed to encourage the California legislature and state agencies to enact policies and allocate funds to explicitly support our goal of having California students spend 20–25 percent of their school day hours learning, playing, and recreating outdoors.
Data Initiative
The Data Initiative for Environmental and Climate Action in California’s TK–12 Schools has developed an interactive database that supports scaling environmental and climate action implementation in California’s schools using an equity-informed and data-driven approach. Read more about it in our latest article.
Technical Assistance
We are excited to announce that our technical assistance webpage is now live! Ten Strands offers technical assistance services that support education-focused organizations in designing and implementing environmental and climate action initiatives across the campus, curriculum, community, and overall culture of a school community.
- Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) was recognized as a California Green Ribbon School District Sustainability Honoree. Partnering with the Ten Strands team for technical assistance support, SCUSD was able to integrate sustainability initiatives into the very fabric of its district-wide policies and goals. Watch SCUSD’s chief academic and innovation officer Brad Stam’s testimonial video on our YouTube channel.
In a year defined by collaboration and innovation, we continued our efforts to create impactful resources for the community. As we reflect on all the accomplishments of this 2023–2024 school year, we look forward to the exciting projects ahead, driven by our shared vision for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly world for the future.
