Join SEI, DAS and CCCCE in presenting: Didi Pershouse
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SEI Celebrates Earth Day Month
April 25th, 12:00pm
Soils= Public Health
= Environmental Justice
Didi Perhouse is an accomplished writer and educator with an interest in the power of living soil to help us regenerate the biosphere and address the climate crisis at the same time. “(S)he developed a practice and theoretical framework for systems-based ecological medicine—restoring health to people as well as the social and ecological systems around them.”
Although Didi Pershouse works with farmers in Vermont, she also works in India and here in the west where her focus has been on water and farm practices. She teaches online courses as well as publishing many books, a blog, and videos. Among her published books, there are titles that bridge ideas in ecology with ideas about soil and plants and a popular teacher’s manual for classroom use on understanding soil health and watersheds. She has a YouTube channel with some of her lectures.
"...but it's really much more about soil and plants' relationships to water, cooling through biological and hydrological cycles, and overall resilience."
On April 25, Did Pershouse will share her insights and perspectives in the SEI seminar organized with the Professional Development College of the LACCD.
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SEI Earth Day Month Film Festival
April 1-30
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Register here for our 2nd Annual Earth Day Month Film Festival
Here is a sneak peel at a few of the feature films you will find during our festival
2040
Practical solutions to environmental concerns are addressed with the hope that the filmmaker's daughter, 21 years old in the year 2040, will face a hopeful future.
Koyaanisqatsi
An epic, wordless exploration of the Hopi phrase Koyaanisqatsi, which means "life out of balance". Music by Philip Glass.
Whale Rider
The story of a tribe of Maori in the village of Whangara, on the East Coast of New Zealand.
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History of Earth Day
by George Leddy
Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring motivated a whole generation to confront the toxic society we were creating. The Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969 was one spark in a year of major upheaval, leading to the first Earth Day. Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson saw the opportunity to “infuse the energy of student anti-war protests with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution”. In partnership with Republican member of Congress Pete McClosky they establishing Earth Day 1970. Dennis Hayes (a community college graduate who went on to Stanford and then Harvard) was recruited to mobilize campuses. He chose April 22, Spring Break. This would make for the biggest turnouts.
We now celebrate Earth Month. We might pause to appreciate this history. Indeed, "every day is Earth Day", As we work to thrive and prosper enmeshed in the rhythm and complexity of natural systems and reclaim the future of our planet.
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Find Earth Day Month Events on the Events Calendar |
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Youth Climate Strike April 19 |
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The Youth Climate Strike is an annual protest first promoted by Greta Thunberg and now become a global phenomenon. These protests highlight the frustration younger people feel at the inaction of older generations who have the power to make decisions and yet seem paralyzed before the task before them (us?).
This years world wide event took place on April 19. The thousands of young people who have turned out to these strikes are determined to fight the doomsayers as well as those who pay lip service while implementing little. For images on protests throughout the US, this Chicago Sun Times article has a very good reprise.
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SB252 Divestment Campaign |
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The District Academic Senate voted unanimously to support Senate Bill 252
We continue to receive massive support from unions, teachers, and especially from LACCD. SB 252 which will divest CalSTRS and CalPERS from fossil fuels by 2031.
We hope to have every professor sign our petition. Please click this link to sign:
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Gold Creek Ecological Reserve |
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Gold Creek Open House, Saturday, April 27th at Gold Creek Ecological Field Station
Please RSVP to Rob West at westrb@elac.edu
Emily Cobar, guest speaker,will present a talk titled, "Nature in the City: Connecting Students, Science, and Community". Emily is an adjunct instructor at WLAC and is also the Community Program Director at Nature Nexus Institute, a nonprofit organization that focuses on access to nature through education and habitat restoration. Emily leads many environmental education programs for varying audiences from inner-city elementary school students to high school and community college students.
- Open House event is open to all district employees and their families.
- Experience a bird walk,
- View our natural science collections,
- Walk our nature trails
- Enjoy a potluck lunch in addition to being engaged by our guest speaker. Our Gold Creek committee will provide plant-based burgers with the fixings
- We welcome any potluck contributions you care to bring with you.
Program schedule
- 8am - Bird Walk, Coffee, and Registration
- 9am & 10am - Collection Displays, Guided Trail Tours
- 11am - Lunch (potluck and veggie burgers)
- 12 Noon - Guest Speaker Emily Cobar
- 1pm - Guided Trail Tours
RSVP to Rob West at westrb@elac.edu
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at WLAC
Jo Tavares, Director of the CCCCE
BECAP, Blue Economy & Climate Action Pathways, has launched at AltaSea. The Climate Center is interested in engaging with and supporting faculty who would want to explore programs on environmental justice and applied coastal and ocean policy topics. These include permitting and community engagement in public decision-making and exploring the emergent technology of blue carbon.
The California Center for Climate Change Education is offering paid internships for students throughout LACCD who are interested in working on sustainability. Their program is called Every Career is a Climate Career: Green and Blue Workforce Development Program.
Please consider posting this video onto your course Canvas pages
Friday, 4/26, we will host our first BioBlitz/ Nature City Challenge here on campus, and on Sunday, 4/28, we will be at Baldwin Hills, identifying and mapping species in our first campus-wide effort to catalogue urban ecological diversity using the iNaturalist app. For more information and registration, click on the site linked here.
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Climate Anxiety:
Climate Empowerment
wrap up
SEI hosted two experts in the area of “climate anxiety”. We continue to look at ways to address this critically important aspect to our students’ lives.
We were happy to have Eugenie Lewis, climate activist and licensed social worker and Trevor Lehmann, whose practice in psychotherapy focuses on such challenges as climate anxiety. Trevor Lehmann shared insights on how to confront challenges and shift to a more constructive and personally rewarding role that can make a big change This seminar included solutions from the personal to the political. Link to seminar recording (YouTube)
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Bill McKibben continues his lifelong mission to mobilize people to engage with the climate crisis with informed approaches that not only make sense of the latest climate data and trends, but also provide the hard data that should give us hope on what we as a part of humanity can do. This latest article has provoked important discussion.
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The SEI attended Earth Day at at El Camino College on Saturday April 20. We were invited to be on a panel with Eugenie Lewis and Lucy Garcia who we have the pleasure to have known for years now and have hosted on more than one SEI seminar. The topic was climate education in community colleges.
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The El Camino College Earth Day event included representatives from many Los Angeles area based environmental organizations, large and small. We got a chance to play the board game, Climate Cooldown. It is a cooperative game where all try to stave off the climate crisis with very well researched contributors to GHG reduction as well as net contributors.
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On Earth Day last year, the SEI hosted a panel on toxics and communities most at risk in Los Angeles. We were happy to include Sim Bilal, then a student at WLAC, on the panel. He made a strong impression with his political sophistication and ability to communicate to large and diverse audiences. We are happy to promote Sim Bilal's upcoming film on climate justice and young people
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SEI Spring Semester Events
author of the Ecology of Care will discuss
The Biology of Climate in conjunction with CCCCE
May 16- Embedding climate literacy in curriculum across disciplines
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April 1-30 SEI Earth Day Month Film Festival - register here
April 24, 2024 8:00am – 4:30pm California Endowment: 9th annual Los Angeles Environmental Justice Network: Enforcement Symposium Workshops-Prioritizing Protections in Overburdened Communities- Register here
April 27, 10 am to 12 pm. Earth Day to Fight Climate Change! Charles H. Wilson Park (Amphitheater area), 2200 Crenshaw Blvd. Torrance, CA 90501. Ted Lieu, Congressman, Ben Allen Senator, Ed Begley Jr., Actor, Adrienne Mohan, PVP Land Conservancy, Reina, Student Environmental Advocacy.
April 26 and 28, CCCCE celebrates the BioBlitz identifying and mapping species in our first campus-wide effort to catalogue urban ecological diversity using the iNaturalist app. For more information and registration, click on the site linked here.
May 3: 9am-5pm PST: ECCLPs presents: "Collaborating for Change: Bridging the Gap in Climate and Environmental Literacy, Justice, and Action across PK-12, Higher Education and Community Partners" free, register here
May 4: 9am-12noon Cabrillo Aquarium; for educators: Introduction to Ichthyology (the study of fish) at our annual educator free workshop. Space is limited and registration is required. LAUSD P.D. Hours will be available.
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from the editors…
As always we invite your submissions to this newsletter. Write about environmental issues that are important to you. Let us know what projects you or your students are working on. Tell us what is happening on your campus or in your community,
Email the SEI staff with your proposed article or news brief, or calendar event.
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SEI@LACCD.Edu,
abelsbh@LACCD.edu, leddygs@LACCD.Edu, behlenxl@laccd.edu
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