Local Climate Action Program for High School Students in Atlantic Canada

Authors

  • Lily Barraclough

Keywords:

Youth Engagement, Environmental Education, Climate Action, Program

Abstract

This research paper draws on educational theory, environmental education literature, and real-world examples of successful education and youth engagement programs on climate change to craft a proposal for the development and implementation of a local climate action program for high school students in Atlantic Canada. This paper builds an argument supporting the development of such a program and lays out how it could be developed and carried out in conjunction with local high schools and youth organizations. The program would help high school students build the skills and knowledge needed to engage with their municipal elected officials and community members to inspire positive environmental change by grounding them in understandings of the impacts that climate change has and will have on their homes and communities, and how climate change exacerbates injustice. The students would participate in workshops on anti-oppression, understanding local political processes (particularly focusing on the impacts of the climate crisis on marginalized communities and the intersections of the climate crisis and systemic oppression), and they would carry out a local climate action project working with local municipal councillors, staff, and organizations. The overall goal of the proposed program would be to equip youth with the skills to hold their leaders and communities to account by engaging in the political process and work to combat systemic oppression while also improving local responses to the climate crisis through policy change and program development.

References

Announcing YEA! Campaigns, Youth-led Climate Action Program. (2020, July 9). Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy. https://www.climategen.org/blog/announcing-yea-campaigns-youth-led-climate-action-program/

Bigger, P., & Millington, N. (2020). Getting soaked? Climate crisis, adaptation finance, and racialized austerity. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 3(3), 601–623. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848619876539

Boulianne, S., Lalancette, M., & Ilkiw, D. (2020). “School strike 4 climate”: Social media and the international youth protest on climate change. Media and Communication, 8(2), 208–218. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.2768

Brulle, R. J. (2010). From environmental campaigns to advancing the public dialog: Environmental communication for civic engagement. Environmental Communication, 4(1), 82–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524030903522397

Buckland, P., Goodstein, E., Alexander, R., Muchnick, B., Mallia, M. E., Leary, N., Andrejewski, R., & Barsom, S. (2018). The challenge of coordinated civic climate change education. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 8(2), 169–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-018-0473-x

Bynner, J., & Ashford, S. (1994). Politics and participation: Some antecedents of young people‘s attitudes to the political system and political activity. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24(2), 223–236. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420240202

Carleton-Hug, A., & Hug, J. W. (2010). Challenges and opportunities for evaluating environmental education programs. Evaluation and Program Planning, 33(2), 159–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2009.07.005

Dale, A., Robinson, J., King, L., Burch, S., Newell, R., Shaw, A., & Jost, F. (2020). Meeting the climate change challenge: Local government climate action in British Columbia, Canada. Climate Policy, 20(7), 866–880. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1651244

Feldman, L., Pasek, J., Romer, D., & Jamieson, K. H. (2007). Identifying best practices in civic education: Lessons from the Student Voices program. American Journal of Education, 114(1), 75–100. https://doi.org/10.1086/520692

Ferguson, S. (2015, January 17). Calling in: a quick guide on when and how. Everyday Feminism. https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/guide-to-calling-in/

Fisher, S. R. (2016). Life trajectories of youth committing to climate activism. Environmental Education Research, 22(2), 229–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2015.1007337

Johnston, K. (n.d.). Climate change where I live. GreenLearning. Retrieved March 25, 2021, from http://www.greenlearning.ca/programs/climate-change-where-i-live/

Kahne, J., & Middaugh, E. (2008). Democracy for some: The civic opportunity gap in high school. CIRCLE working paper 59. In Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED503646

Lenzi, M., Vieno, A., Sharkey, J., Mayworm, A., Scacchi, L., Pastore, M., & Santinello, M. (2014). How school can teach civic engagement besides civic education: The role of democratic school climate. American Journal of Community Psychology, 54(3–4), 251–261. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-014-9669-8

Loyola University Chicago School of Law, & Gonzalez, C. (2020). Racial capitalism, climate justice, and climate displacement. Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 11(1), 108–147. https://doi.org/10.35295/OSLS.IISL/0000-0000-0000-1137

Nxumalo, F., & Ross, K.M. (2019). Envisioning Black space in environmental education for young children. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(4), 502–524. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1592837

Siegner, A., & Stapert, N. (2020). Climate change education in the humanities classroom: A case study of the Lowell school curriculum pilot. Environmental Education Research, 26(4), 511–531. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2019.1607258

Yates, M., & Youniss, J. (1998). Community service and political identity development in adolescence. Journal of Social Issues, 54(3), 495–512. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1998.tb01232.x

Downloads

Published

2023-07-04

Issue

Vol. 17 (2023)

Section

Articles

License

Papers published in the Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management must be the original, unpublished work of the author. Contributors are responsible for obtaining any copyright clearances required in relation to their work.

Authors submitting a paper to the Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management automatically agree to grant a limited license to DJIM if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication. This license gives permission for DJIM to publish the paper in a given issue and to maintain the work in the electronic journal archive. DJIM also submits issues to institutional repositories and Open Access repositories.

Contributors agree to each reader accessing, downloading, or printing one copy of their article for their own personal use or research. All other copyrights remain with the author, subject to the requirements that any republication of the work be accompanied by an acknowledgement that the work was first published in the Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management and that the DJIM Editorial Chair must be notified of any republication of a work first published in DJIM.

Dalhousie Journal of Interdisciplinary Management
c/o School of Information Management
Faculty of Management
Dalhousie University
Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building
6100 University Avenue
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3J5
Canada

Email: djim@dal.ca

Authors should recognize that, because of the nature of the Internet, the publisher has no control over unauthorized copying or editing of protected works.