Teaching Our Cities -- a project of Common Ground High School, Urban Farm & Environmental Education Center -- is seeking applications from high schools and nonprofit environmental justice organizations interested in joining in a year-long collaborative effort.
The goal: To develop, test, improve and share resources and tools that will help young people across New England (and beyond) learn about environmental justice, build capacity as EJ problem-solvers, engage in EJ issues, and grow into a new generation of EJ leaders.
Participating schools and organizations will:
- Contribute to an online resource guide on teaching environmental justice in public schools – including key texts, model curricula, case studies, practice reflections, and sample student work – by developing new resources, sharing existing resources, and providing feedback to strengthen other partners’ contributions.
- Join in a 2-3 day collaborative teaching environmental justice workshop at Common Ground in late June 2025, focused on sharing and strengthening our approaches to engaging young people as environmental justice problem-solvers.
- Optionally, participate in a 1-day summit in March 2025 (focused on youth leadership for green and healthy schools) and a second 1-day summit in November/December 2025 (focused on paid youth opportunities for environmental justice problem-solving).
- Receive mini-grants from $250 to $2,000 to support their work (e.g., educational materials, travel to workshops, substitute coverage, stipends for community partners or participating staff), thanks to funding from the Environmental Protection Agency. (While individuals and representatives of government agencies are welcome to join in these collaborative efforts, EPA grant rules mean that only local education agencies and nonprofit organizations are available for mini-grant funds).
We encourage applications from teams that include both adults and young people, and we are particularly interested in the opportunity to collaborate with other public schools and community organizations actively working to build environmental justice.
Deadline & Application Process: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with priority given to those received by November 30. Applications should be submitted via this google form. Your school team can use this google doc to draft your response before submitting -- you can make a copy, add collaborators, and copy and paste into the form when complete.
Have questions? Contact Joel Tolman at jtolman@commongroundct.org or 203.389.4333 x1214