Multicultural Ed. “Nuestra Tierra Dinámica” NASA
LaGrave began to develop the Nuestra Tierra Dinamica (NTD) bilingual Climate Change Education program soon after leaving her position at NCAR as Education and Outreach Chief Translator and Multicultural Education and Outreach Coordinator. With BVSD funding, she decided to pilot the program at Columbine Elementary school in Boulder during the school’s “early release” time and impacted all the students (k-5) school that year.
Soon after, La Grave wrote her first federal grant and became Principal Investigator (PI) and Program Director for NASA/NICE when NASA awarded CLACE a 3 year K-12 Climate Climate Education grant for her to develop NTD program,
The 3-year program reached a total of 625 students (K-12) in Boulder County (BVSD and SVVSD). The program developed “Green Labs” hands-on activities for elementary school students and “Video Lab”, video technology for Middle and High school students, and was active in 5 schools. Two Elementary schools (Columbine and Unihill), two middle schools (Manhattan and Trail Ridge), and one High school (Fairview High School), and the YMCA in the summer.
NTD “Video Lab” Middle and High school students developed a total of 24 climate change videos, PSA’s, and animations. In awe of their amazing work, La Grave pursued supplementary funding from NCAR and 15 students traveled for the first time ever to San Francisco to present their videos to the scientific community at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting.
The program focused on K-12 Latinx youth after school climate change education experiences. The program raised global climate/Earth system literacy through culturally relevant, inquiry-based, hands-on activities, and digital story-telling. It aimed to provide high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education as well as to build bilingual literacy skills. CLACE started the program at Columbine elementary, serving a total of 165 students in its first year. The community fully expanded the program. In its second year. By its third year, NTD had engaged a total of 625 K-12 Latinx students and their families in weather and climate change activities and environmental stewardship actions. CLACE proceeded to expand the program to best engage families and the community by partnering with the Boulder Housing Partners in the City of Boulder. CLACE was awarded the direction of Red Oak Park Community Center. In partnership with 25 stakeholders and its programs to the community of 69 single-family homes (52 units occupied by Latino families), CLACE helped bring STEM education, sustainability, and environmental action experiences to everyone, including the Yoga and Churros class facilitated in Spanish by Shamballa Center. During this time, the CLACE/Red Oak Park delivered programming Mondays through Thursdays from 4 to 8 pm. From 2010 to 2014 CLACE managed Red Oak Park Learning Center under CLACE’s funding and resources. Everyone family unit was served and impacted.
The NTD program ended with two big celebrations. One at CU Atlas Center where up to 500 people attended and celebrated together, and at Red Oak Park where the community and the residents organized “Dia de la Tierra” (Earth Day), one fantastic and very successful event!
HIGHLIGHTS:
TRACE, Tri-Agency Climate Education Collection
