Frontier Fellow 2025-2026: Elise Weir
Title of Research Project: “Supporting meaningful community participation for climate justice in southern Santa Cruz County”
Due to structural inequalities in Santa Cruz county, residents of “South County” have limited knowledge about climate change, its local effects, and solutions for adaptation and resilience, despite climate change disproportionately impacting the marginalized communities that live there. The goal of our project is to address this knowledge gap through education and outreach initiatives targeted to residents of south Santa Cruz County (Watsonville and Pajaro Valley).
Specifically, building on an already well established relationship between UCSC’s Center for Reimagining Leadership (CRL), , and in direct response to an expressed need from CAB, we will create and implement climate justice curriculum materials through two outreach tracks with distinct audiences: a) a climate justice leadership training course for adults; and b) an ocean justice learning module for K-12 students. These outreach strategies and curriculum materials, will be adapted to reach those excluded from other education initiatives due to literacy, language (non- English speakers), or age (adults).