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Climate HQ Newsletter
Volume 1, Issue 4: April 2025
For students, faculty, and staff.
Climate HQ was created to empower SF State's diverse students, staff, and faculty to become climate justice leaders. Together, we are training student leaders, fostering collective knowledge, creating empowering events, and transforming our campus to face today's greatest climate challenges.
In This Issue: Fall 2025 Certificate Courses, Summer Field Course, Certificate Advising, Major Earth Week News April 21-24, Paid Student Service Opportunity, Film Fest Award Win, & Past Events
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In our last Climate HQ newsletter of this academic year, we are excited to share incredible upcoming events to celebrate Earth Week (April 21-24) and get you ready for the summer and fall with a new class list, paid service opportunities, and HQ updates/resources.
We want to thank you for reading our past newsletters this year, attending our many events, applying for our grants and programs, and being a part of Climate HQ.
Interested in learning more about Climate HQ? Browse our website or reach out to members of our team to get plugged into our opportunities, classes, and more.
What we are reading, watching, & listening to:
Center for Constitutional Rights (2025), Landmark Environmental Racism Case Win
Gross et al (2025), Scientists Mobilize to Fight Anti-Science Agenda
Yes! Magazine w/ Favi Rodriguez (2025), How to Keep Going in the Face of Fascism
Drilled Podcast (2024), A True-Crime Podcast About Climate Change
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Thank you for being a reader of the Climate HQ Newsletter. We'd love to learn where our newsletters are circulating and who they are reaching. | | | | |
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Fall 2025 Course Schedule Out!
Begin planning to sign up for your Climate Change Certificate courses!
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Need Certificate Advising? | | | |
Certificate in Climate Change: Causes, Impacts, and Solutions
Interested in the Climate Change Certificate? Need advising? This unique 13-19 unit program is open to students of any major and is a great way to complete your SF State Studies requirements along with many of your Upper Division and even major requirements too! Students take 5 classes, one in each of the following areas: Foundations, Causes, Impacts, Solutions, and a Practicum course. Students gain an interdisciplinary overview of climate change issues and climate justice. This is a great way to get started in studies on climate change and is flexible to accommodate students in all majors.
Stay connected with us to learn about upcoming classes in the certificate and speak to any certificate advisor to plan your fall 2025 schedule!
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Summer Field Course in the Sierras!
Don't miss out on earning credit this summer: Sign up now!
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DES/ENVS/LS 312
Climate Issues and Activism
R3 Summer Session
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Concerned about the climate and our environment? Want to earn credit hiking through the Sierra Nevadas? Ever wonder how to make change through activism? DES/ENVS/LS 312 Climate Issues and Activism is a combination on-campus and field-class scheduled for July 2025. This course will include a one-week visit to the Sierra Nevada Field Campus near Bassets, CA. We look at the impacts of climate change in California’s ecosystems and ecology, and explore several techniques and strategies in using art for activism, and engaging in campaigns.
Contact Professors Saskia van Kampen (saskia@sfsu.edu) and Logan Hennessy (loganh@sfsu.edu), and complete the: Student Interest Survey
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Major Earth Week News at SF State!
All SFSU Earth Week events now a part of SF Climate Week
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Join us all week April 21-24 at incredible events taking place on our campus to get you job-ready and inspired by films, arts, educational events, a fix-it party and flea market, and campus-wide meditation. This is the first year that Climate HQ registered all its events as part of SF Climate Week, meaning they will be public events where SF State students will meet potential employers and other like-minded activists, artists, professionals, and more. See below for each event and sponsors! Don't miss out!
To register for any of the following events,
visit the full registration calendar here!
Registration desired but not required to attend.
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Don't forget to register for any of the Earth Week events above!
Visit the full registration calendar here!
Registration desired but not required to attend.
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Paid Service Role for Students!
Apply to Join the Climate Change Certificate Steering Committee for AY 2025-2026!
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Would you like to earn a little money while working with other students and faculty toward better education on Climate Change issues here at SF State? We’re looking for student representatives on the Climate Change Certificate Steering Committee.
This is a paid service position, $1,000 for the academic year Fall 2025-Spring 2026. Learn more about the position's requirements, and when you're done, click to apply!
This role requires approximately 1 hour/week throughout the semester. This is a great opportunity to get involved in an exciting interdisciplinary campus program on climate change, get professional work experience, and gain leadership skills.
Nominate yourself today! Deadline for applications is Sunday, April 27th.
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Youth Climate Summit 2025
Save the Date!
April 18, 2025 | Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco
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Celebrate youth-led climate action in San Francisco in honor of Earth Month! 🌍 Join the San Francisco Environment (SFE) Department for a dynamic Youth Summit ahead of Climate Week. See how young leaders are tackling climate change, driving real solutions, and making a difference in our city.
Reserve a Spot
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Recap from Student Orgs!
Sierra Nevada Alliance of Gators (SNAG) +
Sol Patch Community Garden
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The Creative Cultivation event in March was a meaningful collaboration between the Sierra Nevada Alliance of Gators (SNAG) and the Sol Patch Community Garden, bringing together two student-led initiatives united by a shared passion for community, sustainability, and outdoor engagement.
SNAG is dedicated to connecting students with the Sierra Nevada Field Campus
(SNFC) through educational and recreational experiences that support personal and
professional growth, while fostering a strong sense of community through time spent outdoors.
Sol Patch, located behind Mary Park Residence Hall, provides a hands-on space
where students can practice urban gardening, deepen their connection to the earth, and help supply the campus with fresh produce.
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To prepare for this event, we went to SCRAP, (School and Community Reuse Action
Project), a nonprofit creative reuse center and arts education organization founded in 1976 in San Francisco. Its mission is to inspire creativity and environmental stewardship by promoting the reuse of materials that would otherwise be discarded. SCRAP achieves this by diverting over 200 tons of materials from landfills each year and providing them to educators, artists, and community members for creative projects like ours.
| Our Creative Cultivation Event was a huge success! Attendees painted old jars, propagated plants in repurposed wine bottles, and crafted their own clay pots. Many of these beautiful creations will be featured at the upcoming SNAG fundraising event during Earth Week, where we’ll be selling them at the ERC Flea Market in Malcolm X Plaza. | | |
To support SNAG, visit the Plant Sale Fundraiser on April 21st from 11am-2pm in Malcolm X Plaza at the Environmental Resource Center Flea Market during Earth Week.
All proceeds will support our trip to the Sierra Nevada Field Campus this May, where we’ll be assisting the new SNFC director, Lynx Gallagher, in preparing the campus for the summer season.
Learn more or get involved with SNAG here or @snag_sfsu on Instagram!
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Recap from "Decolonize Your Diet" Panel
Food Culture as Resistance and Resilience
| | Panelists (from left to right): Bryant Terry, Gopal Dayaneni, Samin Nosrat, Reem Assil, and Crystal Wahpepah. | This panel was hosted in memory of College of Ethnic Studies Professor Dr. Catrióna Rueda Esquibel, author of Decolonize Your Diet (with Luz Calvo). She was a long-time educator of the course under the same name here at SFSU. Catrióna passed away unexpectedly in February 2024. May her influence and inspiration live on here at SF State. | | |
On March 13th, over 200 people gathered in Jack Adams Hall to listen to a panel of brilliant chefs, cultural warriors, writers, and advocates discuss the relationship between food and liberation. Panelists discussed how food cultures hold possibilities for resilience and reclamation in the face of colonization, enslavement, war, and genocide. They shared what it means to resist through storytelling and practices of food cultivation, cooking, and community.
This panel featured Reem Assil (award-winning Palestinian-Syrian chef and author based in Oakland), Bryant Terry (award-winning African American vegan chef, food justice activist, and author), Samin Nosrat (award-winning Iranian-American chef and author of the #1 NYT best seller, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat), and Crystal Wahpepah (an Indigenous food warrior, restaurant owner, and author). It was facilitated by Professor of Race and Resistance Studies (and Climate HQ member) Gopal Dayaneni.
This event was sponsored by Climate Justice Leadership Initiative (Climate HQ), Department of Race and Resistance Studies (RRS), Associated Students Environmental Resource Center (ERC), School of Cinema Marcus Endowed Chair, General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS), and FINA Department.
Read GGX's coverage here.
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Climate HQ Film Fest to be honored in upcoming
Civic and Community Engagement Awards!
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The 3rd Annual Climate HQ Earth Week FilmFest has been selected for the 2025 Call to Service Grant Initiative as one of the recipients of this year's Community Engagement Support Grant!
SFSU's Institute for Civic and Community Engagement awarded the FilmFest this year’s grant for our project's interdepartmental and interdisciplinary focus on student and community collaboration and involvement.
Our unique Film Festival is designed to provide SFSU students with meaningful opportunities to build deeper community connections through art and storytelling. Students have the opportunity to screen their creative climate, environment, and justice-related work alongside professionals in filmmaking, video production, and multimedia arts.
As part of Climate HQ's commitment to justice work in all its forms, including food justice and community care, grant funds will go exclusively to ensuring that all student attendees at Day Two of our FilmFest on Thursday, April 24th will receive a free dinner after the event. Food will be provided by Alicia’s Tamales Los Mayas, a small, locally, woman-owned business focused on sustainable and locally-sourced ingredients. Plates will include choice of vegan, vegetarian, and chicken tamales, rice, beans, and salad.
| | Images from last year's 2024 Climate HQ Earth Week Film Fest. Don't forget to attend this year's 2-day fest on April 23rd & 24th. | | | | |
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About Climate HQ
Our Initiatives & Core Values
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In 2021, participants across 6 of SF State's colleges joined to create what would become Climate HQ, a hub to empower SF State's diverse students, staff, and faculty to become climate justice leaders. We began by creating the Climate Change Certificate Program, open to all students in every major.
We then developed the Climate Justice Leaders Initiative, a multi-year effort to grow our impact through education, research, and action. We launched a paid opportunity for students called the Climate Action Fellows, developed Applied Climate Justice Courses, rolled out Faculty Learning Communities and Faculty Mini Grants, initiated a PK-12 Graduate Certificate in Climate Justice Education for teachers, hosted annual events like our thematic Earth Week (including an annual film fest), + more.
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