From left: Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, Emily Carter, Vincent Del Casino Jr., Janet Napolitano and Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis. (photo by Todd Cheney/UCLA)
UCLA hosted the Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Project and Summit
Four car-clogged freeways surround Darlene Tieu’s students at Horace Mann UCLA Community School in South Los Angeles. Days with clear skies in the area are few and far between. Just this past October, her students dealt with dangerous heatwaves and cancelled sports because of smoke from fires in Southern California.
“Right now, my students are doing their best at being teenagers,” Tieu told attendees of a conference held at UCLA that was focused on how to teach environmental science literacy. More than 200 higher education leaders, pre-K through 12th grade educators, researchers and policymakers gathered at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center for the Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Project and Summit as part of an effort to hash out the big ideas for educating the next generation of climate change-aware students.