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SEI Update
March-April, 2025
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SEI Spring Speaker Series
Thursday May 15: 12pm-1pm- over zoom
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Past Spring Seminars
For the archive on all SEI-sponsored seminars (2021-2025)
click here
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SEI Seminar with the PDC: Thursday Feb 27th between 12pm-1pm-
Eli Goodsell, Executive Director
Chico State Ecological Reserves
“Eli discussed experiences and practice after the Park Fire, including perscibed burns and pyro-therapy. He offered resources for Los Angelenos post fire with an understanding that Facing fire as a community is a very much alive for us here in Los Angeles
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SEI Seminar with PDC: March 27th 3:00-4:00pm
Lisa Williams, Sustainability and Utility Managemnt Program Manager for LACCD ,
Lisa discussed the commitment that the district has made to sustainability, and the ongoing work that is being done to with campuses and their communitieis accross all of LACCD
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Gold Creek Ecological Field Station
Open House
Join us for a guided bird walk, trail tours, and specimen exhibits at our District’s 240-acre Ecological Reserve near Sylmar. Our after-lunch talk with be presented by Edgar McGregor
(Hours are Approximate)
- 8:00 AM BIRD WALK & REGISTRATION
- 9:00 & 10:00 AM: COLLECTION DISPLAYS, TRAIL TOURS, SCIENCE EXHIBITS
- 11:00 AM LUNCH (POTLUCK)
- 12 Noon: Guest Speaker Edgar McGregor
- 1:00 PM: TRAIL TOURS
- Faculty, Staff, and their families are welcome at this event. There will be nature activities for children!
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SEI Environmental Leadership by Month
This is our first newsletter of the Spring- but we didn't want to miss out on all of the monthly celebrations honoring important work happening regarding the environment. So here are the short versions of our January, February and March discussions.
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Cesar Chavez Day, March 31, 2025
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On March 31st we honored Cesar Chavez, the Chicano labor leader who founded the United Farm Workers Union, the UFW. The union that became famous for the grape boycotts of the 1970s, lives on today led by Dolores Huerta. (Our newsletter one year ago featured Dolores Huerta.)
In the many years that Chavez led the union, he moved from strike to strike in the fields of California and other western states’ irrigated agribusiness regions where he helped secure basic rights for the most exploited workers in the US.
The dangers to workers in the fields included extreme heat, lack of breaks, back-breaking work using short-handled hoes (el cortito) and exposure to pesticides. Over the years, this latter hazard came to be one of the central UFW concerns and made environmental problems integral to organizing and advocacy for workers’ rights. Our interim Chancellor, Alberto Roman, posted this letter honoring Cesar Chavez.
| | Dolores Huerta fighting for farmworkers in California, 1975 | |
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February
Women in Science and
the Struggle to Protect the Environment
| February was woman's history month, We place our focus on women who have made significant difference in how we see environmental problems, and how we advance sciences. These woman and organizations empower individuals to take ownership of their local landscapes, reinforcing the idea that civic engagement is essential for sustainable change. | | | | Kenyan activist and feminist leader Wangari Maathai created the “green belt” movement of forest restoration in Kenya inother African countries. She was awarded the Nobel prize and the Goldman Environmental prize. Her work included a critical take on standard economic development programs aimed at poor rural people in Africa. She lived through the independence movement that ended the settler colonial status of Kenya. She was educated in many countries, including the US. Despite tremendous misogynist push back, Marathi was elected to Parliament in Kenya in 2002. | | | | | Grace Lee Boggs (1915–2015) was a Chinese American activist, philosopher, and writer. While she was not primarily known as an environmental activist in the traditional sense, her work heavily influenced movements focused on social and environmental justice. She spent much of her life in Detroit, where she advocated for a more sustainable and equitable society. She was associated with the Black Power Movement and was a strong civil rights advocate. She lived to be 100 years old. | | | | | L.A.’s Madres de le Tierra are a powerful group of women in environmental activism which has addressed ecological protection in Los Angeles as well as water policy. Also active in Puerto Rico, Madres have worked to restore traditional food sources and exposed the problem of persistent poverty and resource mismanagement on the island. There the focus is on climate change and coastal protection. | | | | | Finally, we want to honor Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made a crucial but often overlooked contribution to the discovery of DNA's double helix structure through her X-ray diffraction work, including the iconic "Photo 51” | | |
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January
We celebrate Black History Month with resources on Black leadership in the struggle in the US for Environmental Justice
ecoRise is a website that features and celebrates Black leadership in the environment, They have put together a comprehensive collection of biographies of African American youth and established leaders. Called “Celebrating Black Environmental Justice Heroes” it has useful YouTube video interviews for classroom use.
From ecoRise:
Did you know the first mayor of any American city to implement equity planning was a Black leader named Carl B. Stokes?
Did you know the first scientist to use biomimicry to look at nature was a Black inventor named George Washington Carver?
Did you know the first piece of federal legislation to create “green jobs” was advocated for by a Black leader named Van Jones?
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Spring Semester Seminars and
Community of Practice
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Join us for our Community of Practice if you are working on embedding environmental equity into your curriculum in any discipline. We will be discussing strategies and best practices and challenges around integrating concepts gained from the seminars and other resources into our classes.
Stay after each seminar this semester to participate.
| | Updates on SEI's LACCD Environmental Equity Education Demo Project | |
The Sustainable Environment Institute, SEI, continues work this spring on integrating environmental equity into curriculum across disciplines. Funded by the climate center at West LA College, SEI is facilitating a district-wide community of faculty committed to supporting students in becoming advocates for their communities. Who better to provide leadership on sustainability, especially for impacted communities than our students, who live in these communities.
This demonstration project is intended to be a model for all 116 community colleges in California on how to develop faculty and students on environmental equity. We continue to lobby on the local and state level to increase opportunities for faculty across all disciplines to address these issues in the classroom.
If you would like access to the resources that we have compiled for the 24/25 EEL and GEEECo cohort let us know. Email abelsbh@laccd.edu
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Request for Proposals (RFP) Green Jobs & Climate Careers Engagement Pilot Program for High School Students, (Summer & Fall 2025)
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The California Center for Climate Change Education at West Los Angeles College invites proposals for a Green Jobs and Climate Careers Engagement Pilot Program. The Climate Center is a hub for innovation and collaboration, advancing climate resilience and sustainability through workforce development, public education, and community-centered programming.
See full request here
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News Briefs:
"L.A. Firefighters Who Fought Blazes Show Elevated Mercury and Lead Levels", NYT, March 28
"In Southern California, a Sea-Mammal Crisis Washes Ashore" NYT, March 31, 2025
“A stinky landfill torments its neighbors in the northern Valley”, L.A. Public Press, March 11, 2025
"Global sea ice hit record low in February, scientists say", Guardian March 5, 2025
"China’s Coal Generation Dropped 5% YOY In Q1 As Electricity Demand Increased" CleanTechnica April 25
International body moves to ban worst chemicals. 2025 Conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions (BRS COPs) By some estimates, about 8% of deaths worldwide can be attributed to hazardous chemicals.
"Oil companies have downplayed extent of spills in Gulf of Mexico, investigation finds", Mongabay, April 28, 2025
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Events
For the archive on all SEI-sponsored seminars (2021-2025)
click here
Wednesday April 30: 10am-12noon: MoveLA: "How Can a Boatload of Money Best Be Used to Help Us Restore Clean Air and Climate Health?" Guest panelists, Online. See links and passcode here.
Wednesday April 30: 11am: "Driving the Future: Zero Emission Bus Fleets" Coalition for Clean Air and Foothill Transit. Via Zoom, Register here
Saturday, May 3: 8am-3:00pm: Gold Creek Reserve Open House, Join us for a guided bird walk, trail tours, and specimen exhibits at our District’s 240-acre Ecological Reserve near Sylmar. Our after-lunch talk with be presented by Edgar McGregor.
Tuesday, May 13: 8am-10am: National Bike Month by the City of West Hollywood. adjacent to 8743 Santa Monica Blvd., east of Hancock Park. Details here.
Ongoing
Natural History Museum list of events and workshops. See resources in their website. https://nhmlac.org/research-collections
Become a California Climate Action Corp Fellow - for more information link here
Drop off your compost at a farmer’s market near you! L.A. Compost hosts collection points in most areas. Link here to find a schedule that meets your needs.
Butterfly Pavilion: Watch butterflies take flight around you in this seasonal exhibition. LA Natural History Museum, March 23-August 24 10USD/person, tickets are for 30 minute time slots.
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from the editors…
As always we invite your submissions to this newsletter. Write about environmental issues that are important to you. Let us know what projects you or your students are working on. Tell us what is happening on your campus or in your community,
Email the SEI staff with your proposed article or news brief, or calendar event.
Contact SEI@laccd.edu.
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SEI@LACCD.Edu,
abelsbh@LACCD.edu, leddygs@LACCD.Edu, behlenxl@laccd.edu
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