Youth Outreach and Education
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is committed to supporting science-based education and innovative youth-related programs that help youth better understand the importance of clean air to our health and the health of our climate. The Air District’s youth outreach efforts include support of educational curricula and programs that increase student knowledge and encourage behavior change.
Protect Your Climate Curriculum
The Air District has designed and piloted the first comprehensive climate change curriculum in California. Protect Your Climate includes 16 lessons for 4th and 5th grade students that focus on air pollution, energy, waste reduction and transportation. The curriculum addresses state standards for life, earth and physical science, mathematical reasoning, investigation and experimentation, visual and language arts, reading comprehension and history and social science.
The Air District offers limited teacher training. Teachers trained in the curriculum receive a tool kit containing supplies for the curriculum’s experiments and activities. The curriculum is also available for download at no cost.
Clean Air Challenge Curriculum
The Clean Air Challenge is a science-based curriculum for middle and high school students. The curriculum features experiments that help students understand air pollution and climate change. Clean Air Challenge meets California State Teaching Standards. Teachers who participate in the program attend workshops conducted in the spring each year and receive free instructional and laboratory materials. Since 2003, approximately 600 teachers have attended the workshops and an estimated 67,000 students have been taught lessons from the curriculum.
Cool the Earth
In order to promote behavior change in the classroom and in students’ homes the Air District has sponsored Cool the Earth – a green house gas reduction program for K-8th grade students and their parents. In the 2008/2009 school year the Air District supported the Cool the Earth Program in 10 underserved elementary schools in areas impacted by air pollution. Students and parents participating in the program have taken a total of 5,264 green house gas reduction efforts to date resulting in an estimated reduction of 2,260,597 pounds of emissions. For more information about the program visit www.cooltheearth.org.
As the World Warms
Working with Bay Area News Group newspapers the Air District sponsored an in-school supplement on climate change called “As the World Warms.” The supplement included news stories and puzzles on climate change for elementary aged students. 224 teachers used the supplements and an estimated 22,000 students were reached.
The eCO2mmute Challenge
As a part of its commitment to reduce green house gases, the Air District has supported school-based programs to reduce the carbon footprints in local high schools. Working with the Climate Protection Campaign the Air District supported the production of a manual written by and for high school students. The Cool Schools eCO2mmute Project Manual is a tool to help high schools students become a part of the solution to climate change by taking action in their schools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from student commutes by promoting walking, biking, riding the bus and carpooling.
Participating high schools have been able to reduce their carbon footprints by as much as 25% during eCO2mmute challenges! For more information download the manual here.
Speakers Bureau
Air District staff will be happy to come to your school and talk to students about air quality and public and climate health. As a part of our speakers’ bureau Air District staff works with teachers to design presentations that will fit with the curriculum being taught at the time of the presentation. Better yet, we come directly to you!