CSUB professor receives $50,000 grant from National Geographic Society

Grant funds environmental justice literacy project that includes visual stories from KHSD students

By California State University, Bakersfield

October 26^th, 2021

While Dr. Brittney Beck was growing up, she read National Geographic magazines and dreamed of being explorer. Now, she has an opportunity to work with the organization on a new environmental justice project.

Dr. Beck — an assistant professor of teacher education at California State University, Bakersfield — recently received a $50,000 grant through the National Geographic Society for a project in which a group of Kern High School District students will develop an environmental justice literacy course for educators.

“I was stoked to hear I got the grant,” she said. “My curricular stance is aligned with the vision that National Geographic has in terms of conservation and preservation, especially preserving the wonder of our world. I’ve been looking for different ways to partner with them, to amplify the work they do locally.”

Through this new project, students will complete three online courses offered by National Geographic in which they will create photo, video and audio stories focused on environmental justice issues in their community. They will collect their own data and use that to inform the stories they tell.

Students can choose whichever environmental topic they want, such as air quality. For the photo course, for example, they could take a series of pictures showing themselves breathing in smoke-filled air or capturing ash.

Lillian Thorpe, a sophomore from Independence High School, said she plans to focus on the livestock industry and how it impacts climate change. Thorpe said she is a vegan, recycles and does whatever else she can to help the environment.

“I know that climate change is taking effect in our town, especially with droughts and fires,” she said. “If I can make a difference in how I am living to help how the planet and our community are doing, then I want to take that opportunity.”

Aidan Lo, a junior at Stockdale High School who is also participating in the program, said he wants to help bring more awareness to environmental issues through this project.

“I wanted to participate in this project because I believe that the citizens of the country have an obligation to help each other out, whether it be through preserving the environment or helping others gain proper access and capability to use the resources effectively and safely,” he said. “This project allows me to help bring light to problems that exist within our modern society and possibly spur on others to join other citizens interested in similar topics to tackle them and possibly fix them.”

Inspiring change

After participating students complete the courses by the end of this school year, their stories will be collected and placed onto an ArcGIS StoryMap. Dr. Beck said the stories will be clickable data points on a map of the Kern County area and will be made publicly available online.

Once this story database is complete, Dr. Beck said the students will participate in a week-long co-design retreat in June 2022. With assistance from local experts, the students will develop an environmental justice course for educators.

“The students’ stories will be used as some of the anchors and guideposts for this environmental justice professional development experience we’re going to create for teachers,” she said.

After the retreat, the students are expected to present the course to 60 CSUB teacher residents and 60 mentor teachers in August.

“This is part of a broader initiative to engage in youth-informed teacher education,” Dr. Beck said. “So often, the main folks who influence education are adults. We don’t often ask youth what they think, what they want to learn about, and use that to inform the broader curriculum. That’s something we’re trying to practice with this project.”

Dr. Beck hopes participating teachers will be receptive to what the students have to say and help them better serve their students.

“From my experience, many teachers are scared to talk about environmental literacy and climate change issues because of its political charge, so engaging youth in this type of storytelling might help debunk some myths that are out there as well as inspire our system of education to be responsive to their needs, as citizens of the community who are grappling with the consequences of climate change right now,” she said.

Thorpe said she wants teachers to pass on what they learn from the course to their students so they can gain a better understanding of how important preserving the environment is.

“I think it will help open people’s eyes to what they can do to help stop climate change,” she said. “Having educators pass on information to students is crucial so that the next generation can learn how to make better decisions for the environment.”