British historian, explorer, activist—and the first person to walk to both the North and South Poles—Robert Swan once said, “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” With the dramatic impact of climate change happening across the country and around the world, and changes in the current administration’s environmental policies, the need to stand up and fight for a healthier planet has never been greater than today. We spoke with three teachers and librarians who are making it their business to encourage their students and patrons to join the fight.
Rose Kelly-Lyons is a youth librarian at the Baisley Public Library in Queens, N.Y., with a background in agriculture and a commitment to creating life-long readers and nature lovers. She found a way to combine both passions in her library’s children’s department and its adjacent outdoor atrium garden. Her goal is to teach patrons, from toddlers to teens, observational skills in nature and how to care for an urban garden. “We started going out in the atrium last year with the seedlings that we planted, and stayed out there from the spring all the way through the end of November,” Kelly-Lyons said. “Being in a fairly food-insecure neighborhood, the kids benefit from learning the whole growing process from seed to plant, and are able to replicate this at home.”
From tiny tots with their caregivers, teens with siblings, to parents and grandparents planting alongside them, the gardeners are taught how to prepare the garden beds, transfer and plant seedlings and water them, the proper (and safe) ways to prune the growing plants, as well as when and how to harvest them.
In addition to these skills, Kelly-Lyons teaches her patrons how to observe the garden’s needs—what do they see, smell, or feel—to help the garden. They also learn about the all-important garden pollinators. “At first, kids with little gardening experience are often scared of the bees and butterflies, and nervous around the ladybugs and jumping spiders,” she said. “We talk about how they’re only interested in you if you’re a flower, and the need to walk away and give them space.”
The atrium gardening space has also led to many other lessons and discoveries too. Recently, gardeners have discovered roly-poly insects and wondered how to tell the females from the males. “So, we went on a side quest to figure this out,” Kelly-Lyons said. “Apparently, there’s a shape on their underbellies that will tell you this.”
Amid all the side quests, digging, pruning, and harvesting, she said the participants feel equal parts pride, ownership, and community-building. “The gardeners learn that when we’re planting these seeds, they won’t take the entire plants home, but they will take some of it—and others will, too.”
Once summer and the harvesting begin, the library gives the gardeners, and other librarian patrons, small lunch bags to collect the garden’s gifts. “They leave with a whole bunch of herbs, and lavender, and flowers for their friends—and flowers in their hair, too.”
And that’s just the beginning. “It’s one thing to read about lavender, and another to see it bud for the first time, smell it as it’s growing—and you can’t get that from a YouTube video or a Google search,” Kelly-Lyons said. “The library isn’t just a book dispensary. This physical learning is having a bigger impact on how they see the environment, insects, and their food systems. It’s also changing their relationship to their foods, their environment, and other environmental processes, and gives them life skills they can take with them.”
But Kelly-Lyons is always digging deeper as a librarian and agricultural specialist. “I hope that by planting the garden with them that I’m planting a seed in their hearts that they will care more about the world around them.”
Zeena M. Pliska and her kindergarten class felt the blustery winds that would fuel the Los Angeles wildfires in January while they were flying kites during recess. When they learned about the nearby wildfires, Pliska, a veteran teacher in the Los Angeles Public Schools and a children’s author, began a discussion in her classroom about what was going on—and why. “We were all traumatized by the fires,” Pliska said. “If you weren’t personally affected, you knew someone who was. The kids wanted to do something.”
Prior to the fire, she and her class had been studying the environment—from mitigating climate anxiety to the causes of climate change. “My students could tell you about the three greenhouse gases that create a blanket around the Earth and that stop the energy from the sun from getting back out, and change weather patterns,” Pliska said. “We talked about where the gases came from [e.g. cattle and plastics], and how we can make less of them.”
Enter a second grader from a Pacific Palisades school who had been affected by the fire and who had enrolled at Pliska’s school. He started asking why his new school didn’t recycle plastics (and other recyclables) like his former school had. Pliska asked him if he would like to help lead a project in her classroom, and a climate action plan was hatched.
Shortly after, Pliska read books, showed videos, and encouraged discussions—including the one with the Pacific Palisades student—while her kids worked in triads and “sketch-noted” about what they were learning: writing, drawings, scribbling, and doodling on clipboards. Pliska and an assistant walked around the room collecting their data. “We made sure that we recorded all their ideas and words,” Pliska said. “My goal is always to facilitate discourse and inquiry.”
After more research, Pliska and her kids will meet with the principal to see how their school could reduce methane gases by recycling plastics. “We learned that the school’s prior recycling program had been shut down because the city’s recycling policy changed and now requires the schools to pay extra,” Pliska said. This information spurred her and her students to greater action.
The second grader soon returned to Pliska’s class with a friend, and together they started brainstorming possible people to contact to help reinstate the school’s recycling program. “We’ve decided that our next step will be to write a class letter with their pictures, words, and ideas,” Pliska said., “We’ll start with our school district and move to a city council member, and if they’re not the right person, then we’ll contact the city supervisor. If they say it’s not their department, then we’ll go up the chain of command to our state senator and our congressperson, and the governor if necessary.”
Teaching part science, part civic lesson, Pliska believes it is crucial to engage her students in ongoing discussion and questioning to help them learn about climate change—and to encourage climate action. She also shows her students how to contact elected officials when they need their assistance.
“I want my kindergartners to know that while we have a big problem with climate, there are small steps that we can take to help mitigate it,” Pliska said, “And while we can’t fix everything, we can focus on things like reducing nitrous oxide and methane gas, and reach out to people—including elected officials—and see what changes can be made.”
Jim McGinity is a K–5 environmental studies teacher at the Learning Gate Community School in Lutz, Fla., where its curriculum across all subject areas focuses on the environment “When I was hired, my principal said, ‘Make sure you take all of the kids outside at least once a week, and get them dirty.” With his classroom consisting of 30 acres of land surrounding the school, McGinity teaches students about the environment, its inhabitants, and how they can impact both.
“For K–2, it’s mostly about awareness, getting outside, and introducing them to different plants and animals,” McGinity said. “With each grade, we focus on different things. For example, in kindergarten, we do a lot with frogs—and the life cycle of the frog. In the fall, we have them kick off their shoes, go into a grassy pond, and catch tadpoles. In second and third grade, we do a lot with birds and fish; in fourth grade, we study mammals and trees; and in fifth grade, we spend the whole year on insects. One of my insect lessons at the end of the year is on how we can save the planet by eating bugs. My fifth graders get to eat mealworms and other edible insects—if they want. It freaks them out.”
It’s all part of McGinity’s grand plan. “I want to wake them up and get them to think that’s the whole point,” he said. McGinity stresses the importance of taking care of the environment, beginning with the plentiful acres in their own backyard to learn from, care for, and manage. The kids also learn about biological control, invasive species, bird banding and conservation, and environmental careers, among other topics. This past fall, the kids participated in a contest to help remove “air potatoes”’ (an invasive vine with heart-shaped leaves) from their land. “All of the kids were good at this, wanted to win, and got really excited.” McGinity said that teaching awareness and creating excitement are two of his climate action tools. “You aren’t going to love or want to protect what you don’t know about.”
He’s also a bird lover, a passion he’s had since he was seven years old. “I love birds, and I want more people to love and care for them, too.” In addition to being an avid birdwatcher, he is the founder of Florida Avian Conservation, a federal and state licensed and master bird bander, and the head of the Florida Young Birders Club for kids ages nine to 17 with the Tampa chapter of the Audubon Society.
McGinity and his young bird watchers recently helped the American Kestrels in danger of losing their homes by building and hanging nest boxes. They also assist McGinity with bird banding that informs migration patterns and aids conservation efforts. Sometimes, the teens even get to hold a bird being banded and release it back into the wild. He said there’s nothing like seeing them light up when they get to do this.
“Being a life-long educator, I know this spark—and I don’t want my K–5 students or teen birders to ever lose it,” McGinity said. “I want to nurture it because we need more champions for the environment in general, and more specifically for birds. Our Earth needs more of them!”
