Change Day: How a High School Environmental Justice Class Transformed Student Identities, Prompting Civic Action

• In Event: 58.082 - Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 58.082-20 - Lessons From Flint: Engaging Learners With Environmental Crises

Abstract

Although environmental justice (Bowers, 2001; Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2014) is not an unusual subject for a college-level course, it is a rare at the high school level. This did not stop two teachers at a Flint high school from developing a seven-week elective in environmental justice just months after the city’s water crisis brought hundreds of journalists, scientists and President Obama to their city.

When the high school freshman we’re calling Amadi Green began that course in spring 2016, he had no idea what he was getting into. The Flint youth didn’t know what the term “environmental justice” meant. He had never considered the possibility that the water crisis impacting his community might be connected to the race or income level of its residents.

After the course, Green spoke about how the experience of learning about environmental justice and trying to create change for his community impacted his identity. “It made me feel like I was worth something in my community, like I was a part of my community for once. I’d never really done anything like this before. Just watched things happen. Watched schools get closed. Watched houses get torn down. This made me feel like I could do something to help my community. It made me feel better as a person, period.”

In individual interviews and a recorded group discussion, many of Green’s classmates described similar growth in their identity development as potential civic actors. Further evidence of this transformation is drawn from pre- and post surveys and tests; participant observation in the classroom; post-class interviews with teachers and administrators; and analysis of the students’ culminating projects, performed at a public event called Change Day.

This research builds on a multi-disciplinary foundation including not only on the ecojustice pedagogy work of Martusewicz, Edmundson & Lupinacci (2014) but also the research of critical consciousness and political efficacy by Diemer and Rapa (2016) as well as studies of action-oriented science identity formation by Barton and Tan (2014) and Birmingham and Calabrese Barton (2014).

Change Day was an evening performance attracting about 200 family members, students, teachers and community members, including two members of the Flint City Council. Each student was asked to present -- in a team or individually -- a project aimed at provoking change related to the Flint water crisis. Presentation formats included an original rap song, a spoken word poetry collage, a speech, a discussion of a t-shirt sales campaign designed to raise money for lead-poisoned children, and a film about one student group’s failed efforts to meet with their state representatives.

Change Day was powerfully emotional, yet displayed informed understanding of the scientific and political issues that led a state-appointed city manager to switch Flint’s water source from Detroit’s water processing plant to the highly corrosive Flint River. Students explored fear about the impact of lead exposure on themselves and their younger siblings. They also expressed empowerment stemming from the attention they were attracting from the audience.

Authors

• Emilia Askari, Michigan State University

• Christopher Burke, University of Michigan - Dearborn

• Kristian D Stewart, University of Michigan - Dearborn

• Suzanne Selig, University of Michigan - Flint