58 Central Coast schools finding ways to combat local climate issues - KSBW Monterey
58 Ca. schools finding ways to combat local climate issues
58 Central Coast schools finding ways to combat local climate issues
Across the Central Coast, 58 schools are finding unique ways to help combat local climate issues.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ocean Guardian School Program supports student projects created to address these issues seen in their own communities.
“Kids really see their environment shifting and feel a little bit helpless," said Seaberry Nachbar, director of Ocean Guardian School.
“Protecting the ocean one school at a time” is the slogan behind the national outreach.
“The message behind that is to give them power and control over our changing environment," Nachbar said.
A collaboration between NOAA and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation helps provide funding to 54 participating schools in the Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties.
The funding allows students to complete climate-related projects while learning the importance of taking care of what is around them.
Nachbar co-founded the program back in 2009, taking its first launch just one year later. Nachbar says this program has gone beyond her wildest dreams since then.
“It’s been expanding. It’s been engaging communities. It’s been empowering students to make changes," Nachbar said.
The program aims to focus its resources on students of all ages and backgrounds, especially schools identified as Title 1.
Calabasas Elementary School in Watsonville is just one of the schools that is looking to use part of its funding on a watershed mural.
Laura Arnow is the coach of the Green Team at Calabasas, and she feels her generation has not done a great job of taking care of the environment.
“The best I can do is to help these kids understand that they can grow into stewards, and the Ocean Guardian Program has helped me do that in so many ways," Arnow said.
One fifth-grade student, a part of the Green team, has taken what she’s learned far beyond the classroom.
“I’ve gotten my family to use less plastic water bottles and use more real water bottles," said Eliyanna Jaquez, a fifth-grade student at Calabasas Elementary School.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”