Today we are excited to feature our CEO Vince Meldrum and share a bit about how Environmental Action Civics is being used internationally! 

Vince recently traveled to Japan to meet with one of our partners in Japan - Dr. Tomoko MORI, an Associate Professor in Environmental Studies, Tokyo City University. Two years ago, Dr. Mori launched a pilot of Environmental Action Civics. The program is now being implemented at two schools in Tokyo with plans to expand the delivery in the future.

If you’d like more information on Environmental Action Civics and how to incorporate it into your programming or curriculum, visit earthforce.org.

Dig into one of Earth Force's most popular resources - the Root Cause Tree! It helps young people dig deeper to identify the true environmental issue they're seeing in their community. Listen this week to learn how to help your students shift their focus to think about the systemic root causes of their concern and how your community is affected.

Resources mentioned:

Tune in today for an interview with young changemakers Evie and Charles from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. These young people, alongside their teacher Daryl Ford at Environmental Charter School, and Sarada Sangameswaran, Director of School Programs at Communitopia, used Environmental Action Civics to lead the charge to implement a schoolwide composting plan. We can’t wait for you to hear their story. Enjoy!

Are your students starting to investigate their community? Let's change from problem-solving to problem-finding! The Earth Force Program Team gives a quick overview of this effective twist on tackling community issues!

Show notes:

Click here to read our CEO Vince Meldrum's blog post "The Importance of Problem-Finding in Climate Change Education."

Click here to download the Earth Force Quickstart for Educators!

Today we are excited to share an interview our Program Manager Taylor Ruffin did with young changemakers from Estes Park, Colorado. These young people are part of a multi-year effort at their school to build resilience to natural hazards in their community, and we can’t wait for you to hear their story. Enjoy!

More about the students’ work:

After years of evacuations due to more wildfires, Estes Park Middle School Resilience Team built upon their work last year to engage state officials about wildland urban interface codes and building practices that create resilience against wildfire. Students visited the State Capitol to meet with Senator Cutter and Gov. Polis to advocate for CO Senate Bill 23-166 that establishes a Wildfire Resilience Code Board. This Board will work to ensure community safety from and more resiliency to wildfires by reducing the risk of wildfires to people and property through the adoption of statewide codes and standards. This Bill was signed May 12th 2023! In addition to their advocacy the Resilience Team planted trees and participated in community events that bring awareness to watershed health.

Learn more about the RISE Challenge here.

We’re so excited to share these key experiences with you – these are the core of Environmental Action Civics.

Today we’re sharing an interview with Amelia Bernstein. Amelia went through the Earth Force Process as a student with one of our rockstar educators years ago and shares what that experience was like and how it changed her. She is now on our board of directors and attending college. We think you’ll really enjoy hearing her perspective about what makes youth-adult partnerships effective and the impact this experience can have on a young environmental citizen.

Today, our program crew will be digging into just a few of the many research articles that back up our Environmental Action Civics approach and our goals for getting youth engaged in environmental decision-making in order to be active and engaged community members now and in the future. 

Today we will be providing you with a little insider access to our annual Educator Workshop! We were joined by two practiced Environmental Action Civics educators: Carmen and Asim. Their experience and insight really helped us craft this workshop to be meaningful for the participants. During today’s episode we will be hearing from the workshop participants themselves, an absolutely stellar group of educators from across the country.

In this episode, our Program Team shares the Environmental Action Civics Roadmap. 

The Roadmap is a tool you can use to assess where you’re at in your EAC journey and the possibilities to delve deeper. 

Download your copy here!