By Dr. Mary Ann Dewan and Dr. Dilafruz R. Williams
Climate change is a lived reality for California’s schools. Extreme heat, wildfire smoke, flooding, and drought disrupt learning, threaten student health, and strain facilities. For education leaders at all levels, the challenge is urgent: to prepare our schools and our students for a climate future.
In 2023, a statewide coalition of educators, health experts, and community leaders released “Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action” (Patel et al., 2023). The report outlines a transformative vision for TK–12 schools that safeguard children’s health, ensure continuity of learning, and model sustainability. Schools are not only places of learning. Schools are centers of their community and the hub for all aspects of student wellbeing. As such, schools are uniquely positioned as frontline institutions to promote climate resilience and equity.
Similarly, the Green Schools movement, which started in the early 2000s in the United States, raised a sense of urgency. The U.S. Department of Education established the Green Ribbon Schools Award in 2011 to motivate schools and recommended a comprehensive three-pronged approach to transform schools toward climate resiliency:
- Reducing environmental impacts and costs;
- Improving the health and wellness of schools, students, and staff; and
- Offering multi-disciplinary environmental and sustainability education.
In addition, several resources are available to school administrators in California. For instance, the California Department of Education (2025) offers hands-on examples for Climate Literacy and Career and Technical Education Pathways; and the California Air Resources Board (2004) provides incentives for transition to zero-emission school buses.
School-based administrators can form strong partnerships with their district leaders, school board, parent communities, environmental communities, staff, and students, as climate resilience requires significant allies and long-term commitment. Much progress can be made by agreeing to and implementing practical strategies that yield measurable success. Sharing success with the broader community and making space for others to be involved reinforces the focus and generates momentum. The practical strategies below provide a pathway for implementation for administrators.
1. Modernize facilities for resilience
Upgrades to solar and energy storage systems: Start small, plan big. Ensure schools remain powered during outages, while reducing emissions and costs. Address LED retrofits, hydration stations, recycling programs, LEED certifications, and electric bus fleets, if practical.
HVAC upgrades: Improve indoor air quality and thermal comfort, protecting students from wildfire smoke and heat waves. Frame upgrades as both cost-saving and student and staff health investments.
Green schoolyards and gardens: Green canopy has been shown to be an equity issue in many cities. With school and district facilities personnel, develop a blueprint to replace asphalt with shade trees, native plants, and food gardens to reduce heat islands, support student wellness, and provide hands-on learning. There is a growing body of research that shows that green schoolyards and gardens can improve students’ mental and emotional health, along with their attentiveness for academic engagement (Williams, 2018).
2. Embed climate literacy in curriculum
Climate science integration: Connect climate science to local events such as wildfires, droughts, and floods thus making lessons even more relevant. Prioritize teacher professional development to support student-centered, hands-on, project-based learning to solve community issues thereby empowering them.
Career pathways: Expand CTE programs for green careers such as solar installation, sustainable agriculture, horticulture, clean energy, holistic food systems, environmental engineering, among innumerable other opportunities as green career prospects are increasing.
Mental health supports: Train counselors and staff to recognize climate anxiety and trauma. Implement trauma-informed practices. If a child has experienced natural disaster, it can lead to worries about climate change. It is imperative to engage them actively to make small positive changes such as recycling, building garden beds, conservation of materials through reusing them when possible, and so on. Doing so with others in a supportive environment, can help with overcoming despair and, instead, generate hope. School-based wellness initiatives such as Wellness Centers can serve as an anchor to help young people address anxiety.
3. Elevate and empower youth voice and agency
Create student sustainability councils that provide advice on campus decisions. Involve students in facilities planning meetings — youth perspectives often highlight overlooked issues like bike racks, refill stations, or shaded outdoor spaces. Encourage student-led campaigns (anti-idling, zero waste, plastic reduction) that build civic skills and foster ownership.
As part of facility planning, include green schoolyards and gardens. Build and sustain school gardens in partnership with families and community organizations such as master gardeners. Gardens provide hands-on climate education, connect students to food systems, and improve mental health. Empower students to take the lead in designing, planting, composting, and harvesting, reinforcing responsibility and teamwork. Use gardens as outdoor classrooms across subjects — science, math, art, and social studies, and for mental health and wellness (Williams & Brown, 2012).
4. Center equity and justice
Climate resilience is inseparable from educational equity. There is mounting evidence that nature exposure in urban areas is not equal across neighborhoods. School greening and sustainability efforts can be embedded in assessment of green infrastructure within and around school grounds.
Furthermore, as environmental justice literature demonstrates, affluent neighborhoods have demonstrably more access to parks and other resources compared with those in impoverished neighborhoods. There is evidence related to the positive impact of greenness on children’s behavioral and cognitive development. At its core, all efforts to address climate resilience and upgrading schools must be centered on serving vulnerable populations through the lens of equity and justice. Moreover, provide translation and outreach so that families feel included and valued and can engage in sustainability planning.
5. Celebrate and share successes
Publicly acknowledge student and staff contributions at school board meetings and community events. Share stories of lessons learned and of accomplishments to inspire other schools and districts. Encourage students to present at their district board meetings, PTA meetings, neighborhood meetings, and to write newsletters to educate the general public. And, as opportunities arise, apply for recognition like the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools Award.
Implementation: Spotlight on Los Altos HS
Through innovation and imagination, there are endless possibilities for school leaders to foster engagement in critical environmental and health issues. Examples of implementation are available in schools throughout the state of California.
A school in our own community, Los Altos High School, in the Mountain View Los Altos High School District, demonstrated how youth leadership can drive climate resilience on campus. In 2021, LAHS was named a U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School, recognized for excellence in resource efficiency, health and wellness, and sustainability education. It was one of 27 schools nationwide to receive the award (i.e. among the top 0.02 percent schools nationwide). The previous year, out of more than 10,300 schools in California, LAHS ranked in the top 0.05 percent statewide in recognition for its efforts to conserve resources and promote environmental literacy. Their efforts to conserve resources and promote environmental literacy show LAHS students’ commitment even as they pass the leadership baton when seniors graduate. Here are a few examples of the LAHS Green Team’s student-led initiatives (2025) and their impact.
Student-led ongoing initiatives
Anti-Idling campaign: Students partnered with the City of Los Altos to reduce on-campus idling by 80 percent, cutting air pollution and modeling civic engagement.
Plastic water bottle ban: The Green Team collaborated with PTSA and administrators to eliminate single-use plastic bottles, replacing them with refillable alternatives.
Climate resolution: In partnership with Citizens’ Climate Lobby and Schools for Climate Action, youth leaders presented a Climate Action Resolution to the district board ensuring student voices shaped policy. Recognizing the district’s environmental efforts, the resolution calls for the formation of a Climate Action Committee, which is responsible for recommending sustainability initiatives to the superintendent and the board for implementation.
Green alternatives to herbicides: Students created an awareness of risks of herbicides on turf and urged district’s maintenance office to find greener alternatives.
Impact
Transportation shift: Between 2015 and 2020, student biking increased from 253 to over 600 riders, while staff adoption of electric vehicles rose from zero to 27.
Carbon reduction: These changes reduced 51.5 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually — the equivalent of driving around the Earth more than five times.
Youth empowerment: Students organized conferences, presentations, and curriculum outreach (ClimatEdu), reaching peers across multiple schools.
School gardens and tree planting: Students worked with GreenTown Los Altos to plant trees and create green spaces, turning the campus into a living laboratory for sustainability.
Created and offered an environmental education program: Students created an interactive 12-day program for the Mountain View Los Altos community to educate participants about the climate crisis, their carbon footprint, and how to live more sustainably.
Leadership in education has always meant preparing students for the future. Today, that future is inseparable from the health of our planet. By embedding sustainability into facilities, curriculum, and community partnerships, administrators can ensure schools remain safe, equitable, and inspiring — even in the face of climate change.
The promise of climate-resilient schools is the promise of innovation and imagination. Schools are sites where curiosity is fostered among children and youth, and sites where a sense of agency in the possibilities of overcoming hardships is championed. The greening of schools has provided much-needed impetus to students as problem-solvers engaging with their teachers and community to address climate resiliency.
As the Climate Resilient California Schools report emphasized, this is not just about resilience — it is about leadership, foresight, and hope. Our students are able co-collaborators. With bold leadership, they will be ready to carry the work forward.
Mary Ann Dewan, Ph.D., is a former county superintendent, a partner with FourPoint Education Partners; and contributing author of the Climate Resilient California Schools Report.
Dilafruz R. Williams, Ph.D., is a professor emerita at Portland State University and author of “Learning Gardens and Sustainability Education: Bringing Life to Schools and Schools to Life.”
References
California Department of Education (2025). Climate Literacy and CTE Pathways.
California Air Resources Board (2024). School Bus Transition to Zero Emissions.
Los Altos High School Green Team (2005): https://sites.google.com/view/lahsgreenteam.
Patel L., Vincent J.M., Veidis E., Klein J., Doane K., Hansen J., Lew Z., Yeghoian A. (2023). A Call to Action: Climate Resilient California Schools. Safeguarding Children’s Health and Opportunity to Learn in TK–12. Stanford University.
U.S. Green Building Council (2023). LEED for Schools: Best Practices.
Williams, D. R. & Brown, J. D. (2012). Learning gardens and sustainability education: Bringing life to schools and schools to life. New York: Routledge.
Williams, D. R. (2018). Garden-based education. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.188
