Dallas ISD Environment & Climate Resolution
Early in the 2019-2020 school year, the “Earthlings,” the Environmental and Climate Action Club in the Dallas ISD Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center, started a campaign to convince the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees to adopt a policy to start addressing climate change. The club had students write letters and the club members in the photo made presentations at the Board Meeting.
On Feb. 27, 2020, the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees unanimously passed the Environment & Climate Resolution. The resolution created an Environmental and Climate Committee, which met to develop goals and progress measures for how the district can act on climate change. The district will now explore the feasibility of the reduced goals the staff picked from the Environmental and Climate Committee’s report of many recommendations.
The members of the Earthlings environmental activism club at the Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center in Dallas have been organizing to urge local officials to take action on climate change. From left to right: Drew Easley, Richard Herrera, Jonathan Cartwright, Gideon Krieger, Janet Shuey, Claudia Gomez and Brandon Hernandez.(Lynda M. Gonzalez / Staff Photographer)
The story of a Solar Champion
Claire Vlases, a seventh grader at Sacajawea Middle School in Bozeman, Montana, championed the installation of solar panels on her school. Claire possessed the one missing ingredient all the adults around her were missing. She read about solar PV technology and realized it was a better choice for providing electricity to her school than paying for Montana coal to burn in a power plant. Her vision and enthusiasm carried the day. She raised enough money to install a modest solar array on her school and two other schools as well. The possible reason she did not install enough panels to supply most—if not all—of her school’s electricity was somebody passed a law limiting the number that could be installed. After all, they had to take care of the coal industry.
So remember, when you want to do something new that will upset the status quo and move forward with new technology, don’t look to those with financial interests in keeping things the same. Select a young person with vision and drive, then beat back the naysayers and let her run with it!
Click button below to watch the video:
You CAN get the School Board to Purchase Electric Buses!
Holly Thorpe, an eighth grade student in south Florida, measured the CO2 concentration at the bus stop and inside the school bus for her Science Fair Project. She found the same results reported in the literature—the pollution was worse inside the diesel bus than outside—1000 ppm CO2 at the bus stop and 5000 ppm inside the bus. A person can get nauseated when exposed to 5000 ppm CO2 and get asthma from repeated exposures—all symptoms seen in children who go to the school nurse. When Holly presented her Science Fair Project seen by the entire school, teachers, parents, the principal and perhaps some reporters, suddenly the school board thought her suggestion of purchasing clean electric school buses was a good idea! They purchased the buses with Volkswagen Diesel Settlement money. Which emphasizes: you only have to explain the situation in understandable terms simultaneously to the school board members and the right audience of voters.
Watch a video that tells Holly’s story by clicking the button below:
GreeningDallasISD 