Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action
Over the last several months, a statewide coalition of nearly 50 experts – including doctors, medical and environmental health researchers, educators, youth and community groups – worked together to explore the challenges of climate change from the perspective of children’s health and education. Our insights and recommendations were published in Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action.
Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action envisions California schools that help to mitigate both the causes and the impacts of climate change. This is the first comprehensive report on climate-driven impacts on children in California, drawing together research from pediatrics, public health, and education under the leadership of Stanford University’s Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, the Action Lab for Planetary Health at Stanford Medicine’s Center for Innovation in Global Health, the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Cities + Schools, Ten Strands, and UndauntedK12.
Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action lays out evidence-based recommendations to center climate resilience within the 21st-century mission of California’s public schools. The 14 recommendations reflect three essential dimensions of the school: the campus, the community, and the curriculum. Our report makes the case for strategic investments that can improve health and education outcomes for students, return savings to school districts, and grow jobs in sustainable, future-facing industries.
Ultimately, we are calling on state leaders to launch a California Master Plan for Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Schools that will shape a transformative $150 billion investment in the coming decade and align the state’s massive TK-12 system with its public health and climate mitigation goals. Without this master plan, we risk doubling down on learning loss, youth anxiety, and school closures — all crises already made worse by the pandemic.
A recent study revealed that a child’s DNA could be altered and risk of chronic illness increased after even brief exposure to air pollution. Research like that underscores the importance of our work at the intersection of education and climate action. We know this is a big, complex issue to tackle, but its consequences are real and so our solutions must be, too. We are confident in the potential of California’s TK-12 public school sector to respond to the challenge of climate change and hope that our report can serve as a blueprint for action.
