Erika Kessler (elk2144@tc.columbia.edu)
Partnered with TC Working Group on Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE), I was fortunate to be chosen as the inaugural Zankel Fellowship for the project ESE For All. As the fellow, I assisted four Sustainability Coordinators in Title-1 NYC schools to simultaneously teach about ESE in after-school green teams and also provide a platform for students to engage with issues that are important to them. Through this fellowship, I have been seeking out and attempting to understand the inner life of students and their school communities regarding social, political, and environmental issues they encounter.
We focused on teaching ESE through student-centered projects, discussions, and school community outreach on recycling, reducing waste, and alleviating environmental inequality. I had the privilege to work with students from 3rd grade to seniors in high school. The four schools spread throughout NYC – two in lower Manhattan (PS 51 and High School of Fashion Industries), one in East Harlem (PS 146) and one in Brooklyn (IS 223). Each week I went to at least three of the four schools, alternating the schedule due to overlap in green team meeting times. The rest of the week was spent with the sustainability coordinators, where we collaborated on activity planning and long-term strategies for integrating ESE into their school.
My primary goal was to promote the Sustainability Coordinators effort in their schools as agents of change. We would work together in the classroom to teach students about sustainability and the environment, co-facilitate meaningful discussions on different topics, and activate outreach strategies for the whole school community. In collaborating with sustainability coordinators, I worked to understand their full task and experience in preparing to infuse ESE. Through this, I feel I was able to make a small difference for the teachers and students by empowering and supporting coordinators in a subject they may not feel entirely comfortable to engage with or teach. Throughout the year I was thrilled to see that students were at the center of their learning in the green teams and pursued topics within it that they felt a connection to and commitment fostering change for their school and community.
Many green team students were able to engage ESE with their peers on topics such as pollution, climate change, social inequality, and other sustainability topics. The coordinator at PS 51 and her green team focused on how they can effect change through engineering and robotics. Students chose a an environmental problem they felt an urgency to engage with and built prototypes to help solve those issues. After learning about the damaging effects of fracking, a group of students created a prototype to detect toxic chemicals (such as lead) in community resident’s water and soil.
At the high school, students used an empirical research design and conducted student-led focus groups to understand their peer’s attitudes toward environmental issues. I am so proud of the high school students for their confidence in engaging ESE with their peers. One student at the high school stated during one of our after-school green team meetings, “The environment and sustainability are directly connected to the well-being of my Dominican family!” We were just discussing how education on environmental issues tends to be overlooked and hardly connected to their own lives. Students indicated how opportunities to debate salient problems on the environment and how it relates to their community were not readily available in school. From these discussions, the coordinator was able to tailor the green team activities to student interests and promote environmental and sustainability literacy. I am especially touched by one of the student’s transformation in the high school green team, who was unsure of how to communicate her ideas in the beginning and after conducting her own focus group, she stated with great confidence she was going to make a difference in her school.
The Zankel Fellowship has deeply impacted my perspective on teaching and education on the environment and sustainability. Despite the challenges of identifying the time, garnering school support and including more students in the green teams, we were able to overcome these obstacles with the dedication and energy of the school coordinators and students. In part because of the Zankel Fellowship, I am continuing at Teachers College as a doctoral student in the International and Transcultural Department to examine the role of ESE in schools and school social and organizational change. I am deeply grateful for the Zankel Fellowship, the coordinators and students who welcomed me into their teams, and the TC Working Group on ESE as well as the DOE Office of Sustainability for such an informative and transformational opportunity.