Educating Leaders for the Future (ELF)

Goals

This project encouraged at-promise students to pursue environmental academic and career pathways. Though people of color are often most impacted by environmental issues, they are underrepresented in both environmental academic and professional fields. 

ELF also provided resources and support for the students in the program to more broadly pursue higher education.  

Educating Leaders for the Future (ELF) entailed providing education and outreach to ‘at-promise youth’ who have limited access to sustainability-based environmental education, encouraging them to pursue environmental academic and career pathways. The term “at-promise youth” highlights students’ potential and strengths, in contrast to “at-risk youth,” which frames them through the challenges they face. The purpose of the program was to integrate environmental and social justice history into the curriculum at a school where students could benefit the most from it. Jobs and opportunities continued to open in various fields of environmental science; however, there was a disconnection between those in the field and the communities most affected by environmental policies. Students at La Cuesta High School were socio-economically disadvantaged, with 68% reporting so. The lack of an environmental education program led to the selection of La Cuesta Continuation School as the site for ELF. 91% of the student population at La Cuesta High identified as Hispanic at the time of the program.

ELF student interns, serving as curriculum coordinators, created lesson plans and other materials on environmental-related topics, which was then implemented into the classrooms. They worked with various supervisors to develop a framework for the program and collaborated with other campus organizations, such as the Isla Vista Compost Collective, Associated Students, and Environmental Justice Alliance. ELF was conducted through traditional classroom and afternoon program settings consisting of field trips to UCSB, college readiness workshops with the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP), and in-class presentations given by the interns. Educational workshops were coordinated for students to relieve any worries they may have had related to college. These workshops covered an assortment of topics, such as filling out FAFSA and environmental careers one could pursue. The field trips aimed to integrate college and ELF students of similar backgrounds and highlight community spaces on campus. Typically, these field trips included a guest lecture from a UCSB professor, who addressed topics related to environmental justice and civic engagement.

In-class lessons were given by student interns, who worked to immerse students in weekly environmental science modules that aligned with the lessons being taught in their biology classrooms. Dr. Paul Cronshaw, a biology teacher, trained the interns to create an engaging classroom environment and provided the preexisting relationships with the students, making it easier to gain the students’ trust. With this help, they were able to transform high school biology curriculum into material relevant to the lives of high school students, connecting them to their communities. The program was inspired by a project run by El Congreso in the early 2000s called “Ce-Ollin,” which was about connecting with high school students and bringing them curriculum that was relevant to their lives.