People

Young students from underserved communities have the right to know about climate change and climate solutions, and to be part of the policy making process to address climate change. The Climate Action Institute will enable 20 high school students to do just that. Through interactive workshops, field trips and engaging experienced speakers, participants of the Climate Action Institute will explore climate and environmental justice issues—and possible solutions— affecting their local and global community. Moreover, the students will take action by organizing for and attending the People’s Climate March on September 21, 2014. At the end of this one-week institute, the students will be climate literate, understand the power of social movements, and feel like they are part of the climate justice movement.

Jatnna Ramirez is a human rights and climate activist educator at Global Kids, a non-profit educational organization working to develop youth leaders for the global stage through dynamic global education and leadership development programs. Through interactive workshops and youth campaign building, Jatnna supports Global Kids in reaching New York City public high school students from underserved communities to teach them about environmental justice and climate change as a local and global issue. As a lead trainer for Global Kids’ Human Rights Activist Project, she provides Global Kids students with activities and opportunities that serve as a platform for their development as climate and community leaders.

The COOL Earth Schools project sees schools as laboratories to study and respond to climate change. Schools are supposed to teach students skills that will serve them the rest of their lives. Those skills should include seeing nature and the environment around them as their home and life support system. If people keep the environment healthy, it will meet humanity's needs for oxygen, water, and food. Students, teachers, and parents will learn about the greenhouse effect and the earth’s systems of cycles and balances (the oxygen cycle, the water cycle, and the carbon cycle) and how those cycles have been disrupted by the input of carbon from humans' power plants, transportation, and manufacturing processes. Students and parents will identify ways they can reduce their carbon footprints and take action to reduce them. Students and teachers will design and implement a project to reduce the carbon footprint of their schools. The goal is that successes and challenges will be shared between schools and families.

Stew has been leading students on environmental outings for 22 years. He has taught kids to milk goats in Marin, led sixth graders through redwood groves, and assessed the health of the rivers and creeks of Northern California through water quality monitoring and biological monitoring with elementary and middle school students. The more he learns about the intricate relationships between plants, animals, bugs, micro-organisms, and the earth, the more amazed he becomes. Stew has taught in a diverse number of public schools in Oakland, Berkeley, Watsonville, and Santa Cruz County, California. He enjoys photographing the minute details of leaves and the interplay between trees and light. He lives in a coastal live oak grove with his wife and two children.