Youth Envision

 

 

The Goal:

Teach middle school students in New Orleans East schools about how water moves through their community

The Partners:

University of New Orleans Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences, Civic Studio, US Fish & Wildlife, Healthy Gulf, Lake Forest Charter School, Einstein Charter Schools, The Bridge Charter School, with funding from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Gulf Research Program

The work:

For the past six years, we’ve worked with UNO to bring water education through the Gulf Research Program to schools in New Orleans East. In this particularly flood-prone neighborhood, it’s crucial to empower young people with the knowledge and skills they need to advocate for solutions to their community’s problems. The Youth Envision program brings together science learning and hands-on work, design thinking, exposure to green infrastructure, and engaging field experiences to help kids think differently about their spaces and water.

Are you a teacher who wants to get involved? Here’s what the year will look like:

  1. We work with teachers to integrate field experiences, data collection and analysis, and critical thinking skill-building into their classroom. We offer funding for field trip expenses and professional development stipends!
  2. We help you build out lessons that support the field experiences, so they’re not just one-off experiences. This means that what you’re teaching exists in a context that matters to students, without creating more work for yourself.
  3. Students design their own problem-solving projects for issues they care about. Will they build rain gardens in their schoolyards? Help redesign canals in New Orleans East? Give input on the use of Bayou Sauvage’s newly acquired land? It’s up to them!

Learn more today by emailing UC Program Manager Emily Snyder at emily@urbanconservancy.org.