Photo by Courtney Conk
For the last several months, students, teachers, and parents have been working to move our Minnesota school board to pass a resolution committing to power our school district with 100% clean energy. And we won! The resolution states our district will run on 100% clean electricity by 2030. It also commits the district to exploring pathways for getting off of gas for heating and cooking. As two teachers who helped lead this effort, we feel proud that our district is taking this important step at a time when youth across the nation and globe are organizing for bold climate action across society.
Just last month, millions of students took to the streets to call on leaders around the world to take immediate steps to cut fossil fuel pollution. School districts are huge energy consumers—often the largest in the cities in which they are based. Running them with clean energy helps expand the demand for clean energy from utilities still heavily dependent on fossil fuels. It also demonstrates to students that if they can take local action to move their local school system to clean energy, they may be able to do the same for their cities, their state, and even the nation.
We teach science at different high schools in the Mounds View Public School District, just outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Concern for the well-being and future of young people is a shared value.
In addition to being teachers who are motivated and inspired by our students, each of us is a parent, which also underlies our belief that we need to do all we can to shift our society to clean energy.
One of us is a physics teacher who can see the STEM-related educational value of exposing students to clean-energy technologies, such as our high school’s huge solar array. The idea that all campuses in our district could eventually see additional solar installed onsite is exciting.
The other one of us is an environmental science teacher who has been noticing that the climate impacts that scientists warned us about—the superstorms and floods—are happening sooner and with greater devastation than predicted. Students shared that this campaign was happening, and it felt like the perfect embodiment of thinking globally and acting locally.
Ultimately, the school board passed our resolution unanimously. The board members did this because they, too, understand that school districts are major energy consumers for whom transitioning to clean energy should be a climate priority. But as leaders responsible for overseeing all of the key responsibilities of our district, they also recognized other benefits. Transitioning from fossil fuel energy to clean energy will save our district money that can be reinvested into students and classrooms. Energy-efficiency upgrades will improve indoor air quality, which in turn will benefit student health. As we work to implement this resolution, we hope to couple solar energy with battery storage, which could help make us more resilient when there are power outages and other emergencies. And of course, we’re expanding hands-on opportunities to expose students to clean energy technologies.
Perhaps the biggest win of all, though, is that our school communities—and most importantly our students—have gained a new sense of their power as changemakers. In the face of a potentially overwhelming problem like climate change, much of what students have been taught is about how they should focus on reducing their own carbon footprint. And that’s important. But as science teachers, we know that we need a rapid societal transition to 100% clean energy in a very short time frame—and that will require working together as a community, not just as individuals.
Watching our students testify at the school board meeting and successfully secure the district’s commitment to 100% clean energy, and getting to add our voices to theirs, was both joyful and hopeful. And now that we’ve learned the ropes, we’d be happy to work with any other teachers, students, or parents who’d like to do the same thing in their districts. It’s an extra-credit assignment we’re happy to give ourselves because, in short, we love our students. To learn more, contact info@climateparents.org.