Most students and teachers who look at the existential threat of climate change want to learn what we can do about it.  This is certainly the case in Oakland where teachers as well as students wonder how our educational system will face the challenge of preparing our students and ourselves for what is happening and what we can do to try to change the course.  Administrators, on the other hand, move with all the urgency of a snail.  This article gives a  brief overview of how various groups in Oakland’s public schools have tried to face the challenge.  We hope other teachers will write in to tell us about what their schools and districts have done.

In this century, the OUSD has not been much concerned with such issues.  A student proposal to require climate education in the Oakland schools, based on similar resolutions passed in California, was rejected in 2018 and finally passed after rewriting by staff, in 2019.  There was only funding for one half of a staff person for one year.  Now, in 2024-25, OUSD names Brookfield Elementary the model for Green Education after threatening to close it completely while teachers and community persisted in planting trees and gardens.

Many teachers have incorporated climate education and/or the consequences of the unfettered use of fossil fuels; pointing out the changes seen in the industrial revolution, or research and essays on the health consequences of our way of life.

A group of concerned teachers in the Oakland Education Association formed the Environmental Justice Caucus to identify and promote teaching about climate change.  We provided models of district resolutions to AP Environmental Science students, who tried to get Oakland to adopt such a policy, and got a small grant from the Rose Foundation to support teachers who incorporated climate change in their curricula.  The next year, the National Geographic came up with larger grants and the program expanded and gained the name of Oakland Teachers Advocating Climate Action (OTACA).  The idea was to have trainings and discussion groups to support teachers in integrating climate awareness and action across the curriculum. Trainings for the teachers included mapping. Most of the elementary projects were focused on school gardens; teachers also had students make posters and have a parade around their campus.  But projects grew to include both adaptations (induction stovetops and inexpensive air filters, both of which students could take home) and audits and improvements at school sites. Students organized a letter writing campaign to the California Air Resources Board.  One group got a supermarket to change their wasteful and inefficient refrigeration system   

Perhaps the most significant education and action was the work of a group of middle school students at the Melrose Leadership Academy who were working with Youth vs. Apocalypse and saw the opportunity to make significant change when OUSD got money for site renovation.  They proposed the installation of heat pumps for both heating and cooling at their campus.  When the amount of money available for the project was cut and the district rejected their proposal as too expensive, they studied more, spoke to experts, went to meetings and finally convinced the district that their proposal was sounder both financially and environmentally.  Although they won’t be at the campus when the work is done, they are the real models and heroes of climate education. 

The OTACA program includes teachers from Berkeley, San Leandro, and Mount Diablo as well as Oakland.  This last summer there were two one week trainings teacher trainings.  If you are interested in learning more, contact ejcoakland@gmail.com

Deirdre Snyder, OEA retired

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