In this anchoring experience, students will:
(1) Explore three cases of environmental action in three places in California to understand knowledge-to-action pathways.
(2) Be introduced to a sample case study of environmental injustice around a school and hear from an undergraduate student about their experience developing a case study.
(3) Create an initial model of a case study that builds on their knowledge of the three introductory cases and the undergraduate student’s experience.
(4) Begin their own case study by selecting a school to focus on, guided by two mapping tools.
(5) Generate a driving questions board that clusters questions to help them build their case study, “piecing it together”, as suggested in the title.
This anchor experience will initiate an inquiry cycle in which students will build different sections of their case studies by investigating different components that will help them to characterize environmental injustice in schools. Students will learn to be interdisciplinary researchers, a highly valuable skill across many workplaces; and to identify and envision environmental careers that advance environmental and climate change knowledge and governance.
It needs to be emphasized: Teachers should not feel that they need to have expert knowledge of the sites studied in advance. This curriculum is designed so that teachers can learn about the sites selected alongside their students. This makes the curriculum especially fun to work with.
Feel free to use alternative modalities for these activities if things like Jamboard is not working or you are not familiar with them. We have also created a worksheet for you as an alternative to Jamboard (See Materials, to the right)
Three 45 minute lessons
12th grade
Environmental injustice keeps getting bigger each day. What can we do? What resources and knowledge do we have amongst us to take action and what more do we need? Today, let’s learn about three cases in California that faced similar questions.
1.Exploring Environmental Action: Wilmington (10 min)
1. We begin by looking at one instance of environmental action. Ask students: While we’re watching, think about how the situation was made possible. What was done, and what could be done? What is already known and what do you need to know? Tell students to put their researcher hats on. Ask them to imagine that they are responsible for rapidly assessing what’s going on in the settings described in the video they will watch, what is already known, and what they need to know more about. What questions would they ask? Why do they think being able to do this kind of analysis might be useful in the future? Many professionals face these situations regularly when asked to apply their knowledge to unfamiliar situations.
2. Watch a video (~4 mins) about youth activism against residential oil drilling in Wilmington, in LA County. [stable link]
Have students open the Jamboard or Worksheet before they start watching the video, telling them that they which return to it often.
3. Ask students: As you watch the video, write down observations guided by these questions:
1. What was or is wrong/unjust here?
2. What types of evidence or data was or is needed to understand this case?
3. What types of expertise was or is needed to solve the problem?
4. Who proposed this action and what information did they use, or you think they would have used?
5. What is the solution, or a proposed solution?
Note: Divide students into groups of 4-5. Each group will do one Jamboard/Worksheet. Have these questions up while students are watching the video, or distribute the Jamboard/handout to students before they watch. You can condense questions for the Wilmington case if you are short on time, as students will repeat these questions for two other instances of environmental action.
4. After watching the video, ask students: What action would you take if you were in charge?
Note: After students offer a few suggestions, tell them that since the video was made, Governor Newsom signed into law SB 1137 in September 2022 which banned new oil wells within 3200 feet of homes and public locations like schools, health and day care centers, parks, etc. However, just days after the bill was signed, a law firm representing the California Independent Petroleum Association petitioned to overturn it and has gathered more than 630,000 signatures. The fate of the bill will be decided in a referendum in November 2024.
2. Exploring Environmental Action: Land Return to Kashia Tribe & Asthma Research in the Salton Sea (15 min)
1. Now we know what addressing one form of environmental injustice looked like in one place–but what does it look like for other problems or in other parts of California?
2. We’re going to split up into groups and look at two cases. The first is a short essay about returning land to an indigenous nation, the Kashia tribe, in Sonoma County in northern California. The second case is a comic book about understanding asthma in the Salton Sea near the California-Mexico border.
3. Students will open the same Jamboard they used earlier [Worksheet alternative]. They will gather again in a few minutes and each group will share what they learned.
Note: We recommend having half of the groups work on the Kashia land return case and the other half on the Salton Sea. You can also create a shared experience of exploring environmental action in two cases by using your preferred strategies for collaborative reading to have a mix of teacher-led and student-led “noticing and wondering” exercises. For example, you could do a collaborative reading activity for the land return to the Kashia tribe with different students reading different paragraphs, and then guide students through the comic book about the Salton Sea.
4. After students have worked in groups, gather them together again to ask the same questions:
1. What was or is wrong/unjust here?
2. What types of evidence or data was or is needed to understand this case?
3. What types of expertise was or is needed to solve the problem?
4. Who proposed this action and what information did they use, or you think they would have used?
5. What is the solution, or a proposed solution?
3. Modeling Environmental Knowledge-to-Action Pathways (20 mins)
1. Move from exploring three cases individually to modelling environmental knowledge-to-action. Many times, it is not easy to see what knowledge is required for what kind of action. Tell students that they have already generated a number of ideas about what’s going on at each of these places: what information and knowledge were or are needed, who the stakeholders and experts are, why particular actions were taken or are recommended, and who proposed them.
2. Ask students to open again the 12th Grade AE: Initial Ideas Jamboard or Worksheet alternative and look at three models of environmental knowledge-to-action.
3. Ask students: The first model is of the video we watched earlier, about oil drilling in Wilmington. Ask students: Since you’ve already generated so many ideas and role-played as researchers, what do you think is missing in this model?
After students have generated a few ideas, move on to the next two models in the Jamboard/Worksheet.
4. When students have finished looking at all three models, start a compare-and-contrast activity guided by the following questions:
1. Identify and list some similarities across these three cases;
2. Identify and list some differences across these three cases;
3. Do you notice some actors and stakeholders in one case and not in another? Why or Why not?
4. Do you notice different types of experts working on environmental issues in one case and not in another? Why or why not?
5. What do you want to know more about?
5. Close: After students have listed their ideas, tell them: We looked at three cases of environmental action in California with different stakeholders and problems and that require different actions. Next, we’ll begin to think more concretely about a case study methodology, called the Environmental Injustice (EiJ) Case Study Framework, that helps put together our many questions and ideas generated today. Throughout the unit, we will return to your questions and ideas to build a case study for a school. We’ll focus on the questions: Why do a case study to characterize and address complex environmental problems? Why are schools special places to understand environmental issues?
6. Exit ticket: Ask students: What is one thing that you learned today? What is one thing that you have a question about? What is one concern you have about what you learned?
1. Modellling the Case Study (20 mins)
1. Yesterday we compared and contrasted three models of environmental knowledge-to-action and we generated many ideas and questions about what we know and what we need to know to characterize environmental issues. Now, we will begin to discuss one case study methodology, called the Environmental Injustice (EiJ) Case Study Framework to understand how to integrate our ideas and questions. To do that, let’s look at this sample environmental injustice case study on Buttonwillow Elementary School in Buttonwillow, an unincorporated community in Kern County, California. What do you notice about the case study?
Note: Students are expected to notice the table of contents giving them a hint about the different components of a case study, the student authorship of the case study and citational practice. These are important because students can put the case studies they produce on their resumes and cite them in other places.
2. Move students from examining the Buttonwillow case study to modelling the case study, to go from knowledge to action and find ways to move action back into knowledge.
3. Open the Jamboard or Worksheet again. Tell students: We will now return to our initial ideas jamboard and begin to model how different components of the case study of Buttonwillow School and the case studies we examined previously converge with the ideas and questions we have generated so far?
4. Students and teachers will begin clustering their ideas and questions around the case study framework, guided by the following questions:
1. How would you replace the “?” with examples from environmental action cases you previously looked at?
2. What components from the Buttonwillow case study are present in this model? What are not?
3. What more would you add?
5. Now that we have started to co-construct a case study framework, let’s return to the Buttonwillow example and see why it was important to do the case study in a school. Why are schools special places to study environmental injustice? Let’s hear from Katie Vo, an undergraduate student at UC Irvine’s EcoGovLab, where the EiJ Case Study Framework was developed.
6. After watching the video: Let’s return to the case study framework model that we worked on before and look at it again: now that you have started to understand why and how the case study framework helped to understand environmental injustice, hearing from Katie, take a few minutes to add questions that you want to ask about environmental injustices in schools.
2. Exploring California Climate Regions (20 mins)
1. Now that we know why it’s important to study schools, let’s decide what schools you/we will focus on. The first thing we have to do is choose a region. For this, we will use a Region Selector Tool to think about what environmental injustice might look like in nine different regions of California identified by the California Climate Assessment. This type of assessment is done at federal and state levels to identify specific hazards that affect a region so that we can be better prepared for them. As you browse the California climate regions, open the School Selection Worksheet and start Step 1: Choosing a region.
Note: Before starting day 2, decide two things: (1) How you want to group students for the case study. We suggest groups of roughly 5 students, although undergraduate students complete the case studies in groups of 10. Alternatively, the entire class could work together to produce one case study; (2) How much choice you want to give students in where they will study. For example, you might want all of your groups to focus on your own region (in which case the gallery walk isn’t necessary for choosing a school), or just on a few regions. Keep in mind that each region presents different challenges for researchers. For example, the North Coast might have less data available or the LA region might be oversaturated. Learning what is missing or not accessible is an important part of the research process, but can be frustrating for students. You can encourage students to choose the region they are currently in to prioritize collective knowledge already present in the classroom; or explore different regions in California to prioritize collective responsibility for the state; or have a balance of both.
2. Working in their groups, students collectively decide on a region to study after exploring the Region Selector Tool. They can do this by voting or by other methods of deliberation.
3. Exit ticket: Ask students: What is one thing that you learned today? What is one thing that you have a question about? What is one concern you have about what you learned?
1. Choosing a school (15 min)
1. Yesterday, we learned about the importance of case studies and chose a region(s) to focus on. Now, we need to choose the school(s) we will focus on. Open the School Selection worksheet again and begin working on Step 2: Choosing a school. To do this, they will use the School Selector Tool.
Note to teachers: Again, think about how much choice/guidance you want to give students in where they will study. The School Selection Tool allows students to look at CalEnviroScreen scores and tracts designated as “Disadvantaged Communities” or “Disadvantaged Tribal Areas.” We recommend that students focus on their own school (or another school nearby) or on a school in a historically disadvantaged area.
2. Initial Research (10 min)
1. Now that we’ve chosen a school(s), let’s start the research process! We need to figure out what questions we want to ask–but first, let’s take a few minutes to quickly search and see what we can find out about our schools.
2. Using a list of search terms from the slide deck, students take a short period of time to conduct Internet searches about their selected sites.
3. Students write what they find in the School Selection Worksheet.
4. After a few minutes of searching, ask a few students to share back to the class the most interesting things they found.
Note : If students aren’t able to find something easily, that’s also important data! It means that the work they’re doing in producing the case study is really creating knowledge, which is a very important task.
3. Creating the Driving Questions Board (15 min)
1. Take a minute to revisit all of the questions we’ve generated in the last two days. Make a list for yourself: What do you need to know to analyze and address environmental injustice in a particular setting? What action pathways do your questions open?
2. Individually, students write down their questions.
3. Students and teachers open the Driving Questions Jamboard. The first student reads their first question out loud and adds it to the Jamboard. Any student who thinks they have a similar question shares their question and adds it to the Jamboard. Once all the similar questions are posted together in a group, someone can share a question from another category. The process continues until all student questions are posted on the Jamboard.
4. The teacher facilitates a class discussion about what to call each of the categories of questions.
5. The teacher shares that this chart will serve as a Driving Question Board, and the class will return to it throughout their investigations to see how many of their questions they can answer, and if they need to add new questions.
Note: The Driving Questions Board doesn’t need to be done on Jamboard, but it should be done in a way so that it can be preserved as a classroom artifact (e.g. on a poster rather than on a white board that will be erased). It’s okay if students share very specific questions (e.g. “What are the chemicals released by oil wells?”)--as other students share questions and you facilitate discussions on how to group them, try to generate more general versions of the specific questions (e.g. the previous question might become “What hazards are in this place?”)
6. Exit ticket: Ask students: What is one thing that you learned today? What is one thing that you have a question about? What is one concern you have about what you learned?
By the end of this unit, you will have produced an interdisciplinary environmental injustice case study report guided by your questions and the EiJ Case Study Framework, focused on the school you have chosen. For each inquiry lesson, we will pick the questions you’ve arrived at in the anchor lesson and begin to investigate piece-by-piece what environmental injustice looks like in schools.
As institutions of public service and importance, schools deserve special environmental protections because of their young populations. Schools are vital to environmental education and advocacy because they teach future generations of environmental stakeholders.
However, it is not easy to understand what action to take, what knowledge is available or important, and sometimes, not even what the problem is. This is why we need case studies: to evaluate the problem, to identify different factors that produce the problem, to identify different kinds of knowledge and expertise required to imagine appropriate action, and to design relevant action to address problems. This is a complex and multi-faceted challenge, and requires multi-level analysis.
Case studies are knowledge integrators – pulling together different kinds of scientific and social scientific knowledge (about toxics, public health, environmental health, history, geography, and government, for example). They are used in environmental governance and advocacy by many stakeholders: government agencies like EPA, grassroots environmental justice organizations and big environmental organizations like Sierra Club and Greenpeace. Knowing how to develop an environmental injustice case study will prepare you for careers in these worlds.
The case study will be useful to the people in the setting you focus on. The case study will also demonstrate the interdisciplinary research skills that you have developed, and can highlight on your resumes (with a link to your case study publication).
In upcoming classes, we will build your case studies step-by-step, putting all the pieces together (thus the name of our unit: “Piecing Together Environmental Injustice”). You will develop rich descriptions of your setting, for example, including history (acknowledging Indigenous history and contemporary presence), geographic and landscape features, political party affiliations, etc. You’ll also develop a rigorous technical portrait of the many environmental hazards and social vulnerabilities in your setting. Your case study will also move from problem characterization to action – proposing actions that can be taken at different levels (from neighborhoods to city, county, state, federal and international) to reduce environmental injustice in your setting. We’ll provide lots of support to help you with this work, and you’ll end with an important and impressive case study report.
