Challenge Day Highlights: Environment, LT'21
To keep you connected to current issues and topics discussed in the Flagship Program, LT shares highlights and resources from our Challenge Days. This write-up is a brief overview of the day and is organized around the three curriculum outcomes.
To get a feel for the full day, read the agenda HERE. For a full list of resources related to this Challenge Day, read the prework HERE. The day was designed to support movement toward these learning outcomes:
Community and Belonging: Build strong connections among people across many lived experiences. Feel inspired and empowered to act by belonging to an enduring community of regional stewards.
Regional Challenges and Opportunities: Understand regional challenges and opportunities and how they are interconnected, including how systemic racism impedes our ability to create a healthy community for all.
Leadership: Grow skills, tools, and strategies to act as a leader and change agent in one’s own chosen area, including an ability to work within and across sectors to address systemic racism and build a more resilient and equitable region.
Many thanks to Puget Sound Energy and Weyerhaeuser for their sponsorship of this day and leadership in our community.
Learning Outcome: Community & Belonging
Open Space Sessions
New for LT'21, LT has started holding time for modified Open Space discussions during our Challenge Days. LT'21 class members were encouraged to convene or join conversations that met their needs or desires for learning, community building, and action planning. Topics of discussion included:
How to make the outdoors/outdoor activities more inclusive
Environmental Consumerism
Take a walk in the sun, reflect on the day, and journal in the park
Learning Outcome: Regional Challenges and Opportunities
Essential Elements for Environmental Justice and Advocacy
Sue Byers, LT’90, Curriculum Committee; Sharon Chen, Founding Member and Resource Manager, Front and Centered; Paulina Lopez, Executive Director, Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition/TAG; Terryl Ross, Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, College of the Environment, UW and Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum of Oregon; Susan Sánchez, LT’01, Curriculum Committee
During this discussion, panelists delved into these questions:
How are global environmental issues manifested in our local communities and how have the impacts been influenced by structural racism?
What historical and cultural context must we consider in developing solutions to support communities most impacted by environmental issues?
How do leaders build coalitions for successful environmental advocacy and environmental justice work?
Learning Outcome: Leadership
Developing an Environmental Advocacy Action Plan
Kerry Wade, LT’21, King County
Kristina Rallu, LT'21, Treehouse
Building on the panel discussion, the class broke into small groups to develop a strategy for an environmental advocacy or awareness campaign. Each group was asked to develop a headline and consider these questions: Who will you work with? What will you change? What is something unique about your approach? The class built advocacy action plans for the following issues:
Green Design for Social Sustainability
Increasing Wildfire Smoke and Declining Air Quality
Lead in School Water
Racial Disparities in Bicycle Helmet Law Enforcement
Stormwater Runoff
Economic Policy for Environmental Justice
Equitable Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccinations
Healthy Environment for All (HEAL)
Intersectional Environmentalism and Seattle Proposed "Compassion Seattle" Charter Amendment
