Teaching Environmental Justice: A Celebration of Writing and Literacy

The Celebration of Writing and Literacy is an annual two-day conference presented by and for Philadelphia educators. The focus is teacher research and knowledge.​ This year’s theme, Teaching Environmental Justice, asks how, at a moment when the effects of climate change and environmental contamination are increasing, especially for poor communities and communities of color, educators in all disciplines teach their students the facts they need to take action to renew the earth around them.

Featured Speakers:

Jerome Shabazz, founder and Executive Director of the Overbrook Environmental Education Center and JASTECH Development Services, Inc., a not-for-profit organization developed in 1997, to establish environmental justice, encourage sustainable development and to promote improved environmental health in urban communities. At this event, he will speak on the topic, Environmental Justice: The Social Architecture for a Resilient and Sustainable Community

Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor, Earth and Environmental Science and Annenberg School for Communication. Professor Mann is a renowned climate scientist whose 1999 “hockey stick” graph of temperature changes over the past 1,000 years, developed with Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes, showed a dramatic warming trend in the past century. Mann has been an advocate of improved climate science standards in Pennsylvania that teach the realities of global warming.

Featured Session: Landhealth Institute presentation and Wonder Walk

The LandHealth Institute, a nonprofit based in the West Parkside neighborhood of Philadelphia and dedicated to immersive, at-the-source environmental education and community-based land revitalization, will give an overview of the environmental problems facing neighborhoods surrounding Penn, followed by an optional Wonder Walk tour of the Mill Creek area of West Philadelphia. The session will be led by Landhealth Founder and CEO Scott Quitel, a specialist in ecological landscape design and construction and faculty member at Drexel University. Quitel has led hundreds of educational ecology and design-oriented tours/hikes for people of all ages in natural areas in and around Philadelphia.

Venue: Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Cost: General admission is $25, university and high school students are free, but registration is required.

Recording: We plan to record portions of the conference and post it to our website for other educators to watch.