LAUSD Climate Champions

Tips and Tricks

  • How to use Schoology to start teacher’s discussions and clubs about climate at your school.

  • How to get PD time in the schedule and after school to help teachers become more comfortable teaching climate.

  • Great field trip connections and notes.

  • How to start a garden at your school–and who can help you. How to garden regeneratively!

  • What is a green schoolyard? How to start the process of greening your schoolyard–who can really help.

  • How you can join the effort to get the District to fully implement the resolution that started your position. Can we get the District to fund a Climate Literacy coordinatorship at each school?  Contact us: climate.curricula@gmail.com.

Use Schoology to help organize your school

If you want to develop different Climate Literacy Focus areas it helps to get those people and ideas into different groups where they can document and share their ideas and resources. As a reminder on how to make a group : After clicking on groups from the task bar then click on “my groups” and look for the “make group” link and select it. Fill in the details as per the following video if you need help:

How to add the members manually

With your group open look on the left for members and click it. You can start typing in the name of a student or teacher you want to add and assign them a role (admin or not). Be sure to fill in the box on the lower left “add members without invite” if you want the group immediately active. Here is the process in more detail:

Getting Funding for Staff Development and or projects

Spring Semester is a good time to get extra funding from your principal. If you have an idea of something you would like to do with Climate Literacy at your school then make a proposal and present it to your principal. Don’t worry if your principal initially says no to the idea. By about March or April of each year principals are transfering money around to spend it before the end of the year. If you keep reminding the principal of your project they may find a way to fund it. They will also come across related opportunities that are offered to the school that they may be able to facilitate. Some Climate Literacy Champions have gotten themselves added to the Instructional Leadership group, and begun to give reports there. Others have gotten their principals to fund Professional Learning Community on climate literacy. If you think it’s too late, well…keep asking!

More Tips:

What should I work on at my school as a climate Champion?

Prepare a school-wide Tuesday PD about Climate Change: Elementary / Middle / High

  • Curricular integration of Schoolyard Greening - teachers produce a district-wide template for curricular ties that schools can use when they are selected as a school that will be ‘greened’: Elementary / Middle / High

  • Implement a school compost/food recovery program (all grades)

  • Plan and Design a set of climate lessons that dovetail and integrate across the curriculum:  6 / 7 / 8 / HS

  • Plan and Design an integrated climate lesson appropriate for your grade level: K-5

  • Plan a Sustainability Fair (to replace a science fair): Elementary / Middle

  • Plan a District-wide Film festival for student-produced environmental films (Green Ninja has its annual Film Festival and would happily accept a large number of district winners as submissions from LAUSD)

  • Revitalize your School Garden (Elementary / Middle / High)

  • Support Environmental Clubs on Campus (maybe plan a district-wide convening of clubs?)

  • Plan a low-cost climate focused field trip (Elementary / Middle / High). Nearby schools could select the same site, and there are probably folks that could find ‘comparable’ local sites.

How to advance climate literacy in the District 

In all the points below, there are many ways to advocate, but one very effective way is by emailing and phoning people you know in the District hierarchy (your principal and others) to convince them to go to higher ups, or right to the top by talking to your Board member staffers.

We would love to help you speak at a Board meeting or a Board Committee meeting. 

Point out that every part of promoting climate education is an equity issue. The results of racist policy have created a wealth gap that perpetuates under-resourcing. Without District action, teachers at schools in the most-neglected areas will have less time and attention to bring climate education to our students. That leaves them behind as the world changes.

  • Negotiate for Healthy Green Public Schools: Communicate to Board members asking that they direct the District lawyers to negotiate on the entire UTLA Beyond Recovery platform. The new article called Healthy Green Public Schools, asks for climate literacy, green schoolyards with shade, electric school buses, etc. The District’s negotiators have rejected discussing it at all. Other aspects of the Beyond Recovery platform are necessary for teachers to even have the time or energy to create climate education in our classrooms. 

  • Every school needs a Climate Literacy Champion: Advocate that there be NO limit on the number of Climate Literacy Champions that can be stipended each year. Right now there’s an unofficial limit of 200 more each year. Who is responsible for that? That’s too slow: there’s ~1000 LAUSD schools. Are we putting our kids at a disadvantage NOT learning about climate change and the “new green economy”?  Do the most at-need schools have CLCs? Let us see the list. Schools getting energy or greenspace upgrades need a CLC.

  • More professional learning opportunities: Tell the District that they need to include climate literacy in the mandated professional development calendar for next year. Principals should spend  discretionary funds on professional learning communities at their schools. Also the District needs to design seminars for Summer 2023 on the topics CLCs need.

  • Streamline field trips: Once a teacher has decided on a field trip, every part of the application process can and should be done digitally by an administrative assistant hired at each Community of Schools or Local District level for this purpose: buying the bus, arranging for a substitute, sending out permission forms to parents and guardians, and making a list of students’ medical needs. 

  • Develop climate literacy frameworks for all subjects: Work on this has begun by California through Ten Strands, through the state of New Jersey, and more. 

  • Hire staff for this work: Climate education is comprehensive, time-limited, and crucial. It needs a lot of staff attention. We are training kids for a whole new world. 

Join us at some or all of our biweekly meetings! Next one is Dec. 10, at 2 pm. We need your feedback, your thoughts, and your voice. Visit www.laclimatereality.org/lausd 

Join the LA Climate Reality mailing list for LAUSD Climate Champions