TOOLKIT

EDUCATION
The promise of quality education is an important civil and human right that
has yet to be fully realized in the American education system. African
Americans are more likely to attend high-poverty schools and are less
likely to graduate from high school, and subsequently attend college, at
rates lower than any other racial group. With that knowledge, it is
important that all students, especially for students of color, to emerge
from school with an understanding of the environment.
The intersections between education and
environment include toxic exposures which affect
learning, asthma exacerbated by environment,
which affects school attendance/participation,
toxic facility placement which affects property
values which finance schools, and the deferment
of school schedules impacted by disasters, must
be understood and addressed through policy,
structure, and programs.
It is critical that there is robust curriculum content on the environment and climate change in our
education system as pathways for our leadership on issues that disproportionately affect us. For
example, as we anticipate the way climate change will increasingly impact the Earth and our
communities and as we seek to play a leadership role in climate change mitigation and
adaptation, we must ensure that there is a critical mass of students of color in the environmental
sciences pipeline who are prepared for leadership roles.
Why Environmental ARTivism and Internships?
Along with learning the hard science behind the environmental and climate justice issues, it is
important to make learning fun and interactive. Education should be about involving different
media and what better way to support a multisensory education than through the arts – dance,
music, painting, sculpture, and theater. This is an opportunity to make environmental and
climate justice issues something more tangible – we can give the community something they
can feel, hear, smell, and see.
Internships give you the opportunity to take what you are feeling, hearing, smelling, seeing and
learning in the classroom and transition your education into skills that will be transferable in the
work place. Environmental internships are also a mechanism for enhancing the Black-Green
pipeline.
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