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Pamela Symes

Lumiere

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  • 421 TOTAL

Pamela's actions

Health and Education

Become a certified Climate Ambassador!

The Climate Museum in NYC is working with local teens to form a Climate Volunteer Coalition! The first step is to educate yourself on the main talking points around climate change. Next, share your knowledge! To help you do this, the Climate Museum has produced a pocket-sized "Climate Ambassador" card. Read the instructions, print the card, cut/fold, and start talking to the people! If you don't have a printer--make your own! https://climatemuseum.org/ambassador **With parent permission** You can also sign up on the Climate Museum website for more info. You can even post a reflection that the Museum will publish on their website for all to see!

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ONE-TIME ACTION

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Climate Change and Wildfires: How is climate change affecting you? Our hometown? And what can we do now?

First, the article about the CA wildfires and climate change. Climate Change In Your Hometown The featured article discusses the connection between climate change and California wildfires. Another Times article, from 2018, lets you track how the number of days when temperatures hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) or higher changes in your hometown over your lifetime. As you look at the graph created based on your hometown and the year you were born, what do you notice? (If you want, try entering the birth year of your parents or grandparents as well.) Then, scroll to see the climate predictions for your hometown when you are 80 years old. Continue to scroll to learn more about these predictions, and then see how your hometown compares to other parts of the country and the world using the interactive globe.

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Health and Education

Sir David Attenborough: The Voice of Planet Earth Speaks on Climate Change

After you watch the video with your advisory, answer the reflection question below. For additional points, respond to a teammate's post!

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ONE-TIME ACTION

Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

For the love of nature

Post a photo of something from nature that you love and want to protect.

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DAILY ACTIONS

Action Track: Justice for the Whole Community

Voting Rights

After you listen to the StoryCorp episode about voting rights, reflect on what it means to vote. Check in with the adults in your life-are they planning on voting? Why or why not?

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ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Justice for the Whole Community

Sustainable BUGS

The goal of this action to create a more sustainable school experience for our students and staff :)

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Action Track: Social Justice

Songwriting

I used my creativity and self expression to write a song about the current times. OR I researched and shared a song about the current times.

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Action Track: Justice for the Whole Community

Native Land and Practices Acknowledgement

Native Land Acknowledgement means to learn about, talk about, and show respect for the Native inhabitants of an area of land. We do this for many reasons: to correct history, protect and preserve the culture and identity of native peoples, acknowledge the role of European colonization in the loss of native lives and lands. For this activity, read about the Lenape. The tribe indigenous to Brooklyn, Queens , and Manhattan. Who are they, what was NYC like before colonization? How can we honor the Lenape today? (links below)

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Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Eliminating food waste during Thanksgiving (or other big meals!)

Watch the video and respond to the reflection questions below :).

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Action Track: Healing & Renewal

Climate Change Action

Watch the film and respond to the reflection question :)

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Land Sinks

Learning to Fly

Our surroundings, the environment--natural and manmade---have a huge impact on our life story. Watch the video together and then share a memory of your home, your neighborhood, or another special place that has helped you become who you are today.

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Industry

Time's Kid of the Year: Water Quality Tester Engineer

Gitanjali Rao is the first “Time’s Kid of the Year”. She is being recognized for inventing a device that detects lead in drinking water.

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Electricity

Carbon Footprint Calculator

Use the link below to calculate your own Carbon Footprint.

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DAILY ACTION

Action Track: Healing & Renewal

BLM/BHM

The Black Lives Matter Movement drafted 13 Guiding Principles. These principles were created in order to heal and sustain our communities. Read through the Guiding Principles. Choose at least one to reflect upon.

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Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

We are all connected: Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, she was not the first African woman to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize but racism, colonialism, and sexism have long played into this award. Read about Maathai, a biologist and activist, and reflect on what Americans can learn about her work and apply to our own hemisphere.

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ONE-TIME ACTION

Health and Education

Jaysa Miller and Youth Voices for the Planet

Climate Change and pollution disproportionately affect Black Americans and communities of color. Young people like Jaysa Miller have had enough. Miller is working to unveil and hold developers, policymakers, and factory owners accountable for the risk they put communities in. Learn about her work by watching the video below!

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Health and Education

Why have the accomplishments of African Civilizations been obscured?

Harvard professor and filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. is interviewed by Audie Cornish about his series Africa’s Great Civilizations.

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DAILY ACTION

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?


  • Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 3/10/2021 5:47 AM
    It is going well. I could be checking the Ecochallenge more
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Climate Change and Wildfires: How is climate change affecting you? Our hometown? And what can we do now?
    Reflect on the graph and map using these questions: What do you notice about your graph and the map? What do you wonder about the data? How does the climate in your hometown compare to that in other parts of the country and the world? What is your reaction to this information? Does it make you upset and worried? Does it make you want to create change? Or do you not feel particularly concerned about these changes? Select another action campaign that will bring awareness to climate change!

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 3/10/2021 5:45 AM
    My reaction to climate change is too often feel awed and overwhelmed at its vastness and the fact that it has come this far. It is wild to me that people want to destroy the Earth and that nothing is being put in place to protect our planet. Also, people still do not believe that climate change is real which is scary.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Health and Education Why have the accomplishments of African Civilizations been obscured?
    Why have the accomplishments of African Civilizations been obscured? How can we sustain these accomplishments and their impact?

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 3/10/2021 5:44 AM
    The accomplishments of African Civilizations have been obscured because those accomplishments do not fit with the Western White Supremacist narrative. To admit that all cultures and civilizations have greatness in them is to level the play field and admit that one race or civilization is not better than the other. That is not an idea with fits with white excellence. What we need to do is make people aware of these hidden accomplishments and raise awareness of the greatness of other cultures.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Health and Education Jaysa Miller and Youth Voices for the Planet
    How did Jaysa leverage her power as a young person to make sustainable change? How can we come together as a community to put pressure on developers, policymakers, and factory owners to make better decisions so that Black Americans don't have to continuously deal with the consequences of environmental racism AND advocate for change? People deserve to just exist and not have to fight for existence.

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 3/10/2021 5:40 AM
    Jaysa Miller built her case and rallied those around who were dealing with the same injustices of poor climate and care for those in lower classes.  We can also do so by educating people about their rights, showing them the platforms they can use to fight for change, and show them why change is important. Many people cannot fully comprehend what they do not experience. Raising awareness can raise change.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food, Agriculture, and Land Use We are all connected: Wangari Maathai
    What did you learn about Maathai's work? How is her work connected to contemporary African diaspora and climate change? What is one connection between events in Africa and decisions made across the world in American?

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 2/24/2021 5:49 AM
    We can learn perseverance and we can learn to see people for themselves as we unpack and unlearn the white supremacist ideals our education and systems are built on. 
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Action Track: Healing & Renewal BLM/BHM
    How can this guiding principle show up in our school community on a regular basis?

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 2/24/2021 5:48 AM
    Intergenerational: I think this can show up in a loving, vulnerable willingness to learn from all people. Too often, there is a clash between adults and students (or any age) in school because both sets have an unwillingness or an inability to understand and learn from each other. By valuing each other and continuing to learn and grow, we are becoming a closer and stronger community as well as better versions of ourselves. We are also practicing what we preach: curiosity and learning should never stop.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Electricity Carbon Footprint Calculator
    What can you do to either lower your carbon footprint OR "offset your carbon footprint. When you "offset" you basically pay it forward---you do something kind for the environment or another person to balance out your carbon use if you can't reduce it.

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 2/24/2021 5:45 AM
    I can wipe the food off of my plates rather than rinsing them with water.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Action Track: Social Justice Songwriting
    What are the lyrics?

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 12/09/2020 6:15 AM
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Action Track: Justice for the Whole Community Voting Rights
    What does it mean to be able to vote? Should the voting age be lowered to 16?

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 12/09/2020 6:10 AM
    to be able to vote means to be able to contribute to society and shape the way our country is. No, the voting age should not be 16. 16 year olds do not have enough responsibilities in US society to be able to vote.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Land Sinks Learning to Fly
    Watch the video together and then share a memory of your home, your neighborhood, or another special place that has helped you become who you are today.

    Pamela Symes's avatar
    Pamela Symes 12/09/2020 5:59 AM
    The library has helped me become who I am today. I was taught to value books and learning and the library was a place where I could discover other ideas, people, and places.