The UC/CSU Summit on Sustainability to be held in Fall 2019 will “serve as a launching pad for bringing in state leaders and experts in PK-12 education, climate leaders, informal science agencies, private foundations interested in STEM education and other knowledge seekers that include Summit Participants to: a) Create a contemporary and innovative environmental literacy program and curriculum aiming at both in-service and pre-service teachers and PK-12 students; b) Increase awareness and understanding of environmental issues, particularly climate change and climate disruption; c) Promote behavioral changes and societal transformation towards sustainability and mitigation of climate changes; and d) Provide educational and other inclusive tools to students for sustaining nature and humanity when they grow up.
Susan will work with committee members who seek the collaboration of California’s governor, legislative leaders and dignitaries who support rigorous efforts to address the deleterious effects of climate change that can be attributed to human behavior. She currently serves as a Faculty Fellow with the CSUN Institute for Sustainability and plans to contribute the leading work of the Institute and CSUN Associated students to demonstrate how K-12 campuses across the state of California can apply many of the same activities, events and initiatives that are found at CSUN.
Dr. Belgrad will also lead a NASA-funded project with colleague, Norm Herr in “Empowering California K-12 Educators to Address the Health of Planet Earth.” This project will similarly collaborate with CSUN Sustainability as well as Community Engagement to assure that knowledge of NASA-JPL Environmental Science is applied in measureable ways at participants school campuses by the Institute for Sustainability and students supported through the Project and the Office of Community Engagement.
“It has been my incredible pleasure to have become a campus advocate for leading our area educators in projects that brought them to NASA JPL. There we have learned about the outstanding environmental science and supporting data sets that have been acquired through missions at JPL and other NASA Centers. I am now eager to combine this knowledge with what I have learned about CSUN’s Institute for Sustainability’s work to design and model environment-friendly adaptations that K-12 educators can teach to countless students and families, in order to reduce waste and promote a healthier home for us on this beautiful planet.”