This project for me started out as an effort to be involved in my community. I began this journey by attending community meetings about the houseless population across the street from the high school I teach at. I was inspired by the tenacity of the members to work as individuals and a collective to accomplish a goal: obtaining permanent residence for over 200 people. Initially, I was inspired and wanted to gain as much knowledge, empathy and compassion as I could. I tried to reach out to sustainability experts, help connect people with helpful resources, and be a support in any way I could. My plans were dramatically impacted when the community meetings were halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For a while I was dejected and felt unfulfilled by my project, feeling that I was not contributing. This was until I came to the realization that it is not about what I can contribute, and feeling bad about what I cannot change, but instead about seeing the places where I could be useful and utilize my influence to spark change. This led me to a process of reconnecting with my students, seeing the value of education from their perspective rather than mine, and creating space for empathy in my lesson planning.

I began collaborating with a co-worker, Sayles Day, on how to bring the same themes I was so excited about in my houseless community sustainability efforts, and bringing that motivation into the classroom. The classroom should be engaging, relevant, approaching real world issues, and empowering our students to feel the value of education, and the importance of pursuing what they find value in, like their community. So we began to think of ways to bring these values into the classroom, and give our students exposure to the type of education that would make them feel like empowered change makers in their community. What came as a result, was a series of lesson plans designed to be student centered, place based, and oriented around sustainability.