Intersectional Environmentalism

The following is a summary/reflection on “Why Every Environmentalist Should Be Anti-Racist” by Leah Thomas, a Black Environmentalist

You can also like Leah’s page on Facebook and check out her website: www.greengirlleah.com (she has a blog!)

Link to this article here.

I had seen this article circulating throughout my environmental education/conservation circles, and it has sparked my thinking about the role of racial inequity and environmental justice in environmental education curriculum. In this article, Thomas begins by talking about how environmentalists are often willing to bend over backwards to protect ecosystems and non-human animal species, but are often hesitant to extend the same action for endangered Black Lives. She writes about her experience as a Black environmentalist. While studying for a degree in environmental science and policy, she learned about the disparities in environmental conditions that communities of color face (I don't know how to add a pdf, but you can look up The Impact of Race on Environmental Quality: An Empirical and Theoretical Discussion by Raquel Pinderhughes on JSTOR). Systemic racism presents itself in so many ways, including environmental impacts like air quality, natural disasters, and climate change. This led Thomas to talk about the term “intersectional environmentalism” which encompasses the idea that protection of the planet and the people that live on it are inextricably intertwined. In her words, “it identifies the ways in which injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are connected.”

I am an environmental educator (with a shiny new M.Ed. from the University of Washington!!) with most of my teaching experience in residential environmental education. Although I spent this past fall teaching mostly middle/high school at Mount Rainier Institute, the bulk of my time in residential environmental education has been teaching upper Elementary school at IslandWood - a school in the woods - first as a graduate student and currently as a Staff Instructor. Pre-pandemic, I taught 4th-6th grade (primarily 5th though), through IslandWood’s 4-day School Overnight Program (SOP) where students live and learn together on IslandWood’s Bainbridge Island campus for 4 days. The SOP curriculum is centered around IslandWood’s 4 Pillars of Stewardship: Protecting the Environment, Living and Learning in Community, Exploring Here and There, and Leaning into Discomfort. As an educator, I would facilitate learning experiences for a new group of 10-15 students every week.

I feel grateful to work for an organization that is committed to Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) and embodies intersectional environmentalism. IslandWood has put the structures in place to make students’ experience more equitable from training their staff on JEDI (across the board and not just in the education department), to subsidizing programs so more students can attend, to intentionally pairing up students from different schools and backgrounds throughout the week. IslandWood also teaches its graduate students strategies to be culturally competent, equitable educators to ensure that ALL students feel safe enough to learn and engage in learning. We do this through building relationships with our students, checking our own biases, positioning our students as experts and using their funds of knowledge, and giving our students agency in their learning. I think we do a pretty good job of putting in the “behind-the-scenes” work to provide students with equal footing in being provided the conditions for them to feel safe and learn during their week in the woods.

Still, I wonder how our curriculum can be more reflective of intersectional environmentalism in regards to content. While educators and staff take time to ensure that the structures and systems are in place to provide equitable education, I wonder how else we can bring racial equity and environmental justice into the curriculum we teach elementary-aged students. Although I have seen many resources on how to talk to students about race, (here’s a bunch that I’m planning on diving into later). However, one article that keeps coming to mind is David Sobel’s “Beyond Ecophobia." He says “If we want children to flourish, we need to give them time to connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask them to save it”. He outlines different stages of connecting to the earth by age group, with ages 8 to 11 (IslandWood’s target participants) being “bonding with the Earth” through exploration, and with ages 12 to 15 (and beyond) being social action and taking steps to protect the Earth. While I think this sort of childhood and connection to the environment is ideal, it is a privilege for students to never have to think about environmental injustice before it is developmentally appropriate (or even after - I had high schoolers tell me this fall that climate change did not impact them). Some students may be experiencing, and aware of, environmental injustice by the time they come to IslandWood.

Although I try to hit as many curriculum objectives in my teaching each week, overall my main goal is to give students a positive experience in nature, something some of them may have not experienced (regardless of race). I wonder if this is something I need to maintain through not addressing environmental justice and inequities or if maintaining silence around these issues hurts my students in the long run. Perhaps for this age group, they are things to slip into conversations or in passing to spark students’ thinking - normalizing them for students in a way that does not take away from their IslandWood experience and the magic that happens there. On my name tag lanyard, I wear a pin that says my pronouns, which sometimes sparks conversation, and I wonder how including something like that about racial equity/environmental justice might do the same (something I’m now thinking about when I go back to teaching again post-pandemic). I am also thinking about how to address racial equity and my stance on it with my students, but I think that will be my next post.

In the meantime, as I keep thinking about this younger age group, I am currently working collaboratively to create programs for middle and high school, as IslandWood is planning on offering day programs to K-12 in the fall while SOP is suspended until it is considered safe again. Through these programs, I am looking to highlight environmental inequities, especially as they relate to the impacts of climate change as well as BIPOC activists (mostly youth activists) who are working to mitigate these impacts. For these older students, I see the conversation around, and integration of, environmental justice and racial equity in the curriculum we teach as imperative.