Mark Macwana

To me, environmental justice stems from a place of critical reflection. Reflecting on my Title I schooling experience taught me that environmental factors and educational opportunities are not separate stories. For instance, the access to green spaces in certain neighborhoods correlates with the amount of opportunities in a classroom, shown by systemic decisions about whose communities matter, and whose do not. Through reflections, environmental justice’s interconnectivity is unveiled as housing, health, labor, policy, culture, and education all affect each other. 

Reflecting on environmental justice also allows me to bring these webs of connections to the forefront of daily life as I believe injustice is easiest to overlook when it operates in the background. As a future science educator, I see the classroom as one of the few shared spaces where young people can learn to reflect with these connections and build their own understanding of what environmental justice means to them. 

Reflection, however, cannot be where the work ends. Justice requires that communities must act upon the knowledge uncovered in their own lives, which is why I am also drawn to community science. When residents are allowed to document their own air, water, and ecosystems instead of waiting for outside “experts” to define their reality, power is restored back to communities. This power transforms environmental justice from an abstract ideal into a daily practice. Essentially, environmental justice to me means an honest look on how society distributes harm and opportunity, coupled with a responsibility to engage, teach, and ensure that the people most affected are also the people most heard.