The unit provides a structure for you and your students to learn more about and engage with environmental justice topics, using two readily available online data sources: the RAND data tool for mapping Environmental Racism, visualizing environmental metrics within historical Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) zoning practices in just over 200 cities (including the New York City boroughs) across the country, and the EJScreen Mapping Tool, which provides a variety of environmental, socioeconomic and other data for every census block in the country.

The mini-unit allows for deep student engagement with and exploration of Next Generation Science Standards HS-LS2 Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics and: HS-ESS3: Earth and Human Activity. In my course, this unit immediately follows units on Ecosystems and Climate Change.

In my experience, this initial exploration works especially well when students are invited to explore a city that they have a connection to. Favorite [targets] with my students are a city (close to) where they live, where they like to vacation, or where they hope to go to college. This format for classroom discourse encourages and relies on participation from all students.

In the article, Ms. van’t Slot shares important findings, provides suggestions to fellow educators, and exemplifies how she encourages an environment where her students can “meet the challenges of a changing world and make it better.” Read on for more reflections from Ms. van’t Slot on this admirable work.

Back in the summer of 2024, the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) announced their plans for a special issue of The Science Teacher that focused on the use of data in the classroom. I had just finished my first iteration of the lesson plan described in the article, and students had responded very well to it. They were engaged, it sparked conversations, and several students indicated the lessons were an eye-opener since they had no idea that this type of data was available for anyone interested. They learned a lot more about their own city, or an area somewhere else in the country that they have a connection with. The lesson plan itself was inspired by one of my students here at D-E. 

In addition, I like to challenge myself. I also write lessons for the American Association of Chemistry Teachers (AACT), but they are always fully lab-based, and much smaller in scope. Writing a full article like this one is something I had never done before, so I figured it would be a good way of stretching myself. And I got a lot of support from Science Department Chair Tara Weinstein, who was one of my peer reviewers.

Content-wise, it hasn’t changed significantly, but I have added more scaffolding—mostly based on student feedback. Between the first iteration of the unit and now, I’ve had an opportunity to work through the lesson plan twice with incoming STEM majors at Montclair State University. That has given me additional feedback. Between their responses to the lesson plan, and the responses from our students, I received a lot of feedback for how to make it better, and also a lot of enthusiasm. Working with a wide variety of students made me realize that access to information from the Environmental Justice Screening tool from the EPA can be overwhelming, just because of the sheer amount of data on the platform. There’s a bit of a learning curve to navigating it.

Takeaways include students being fascinated by discovering that information about socio-economic and environmental metrics, such as households where English is not the first language, proximity to toxic waste, or air quality are out there, and accessible for them to explore. The lesson plan also lets students experience how to obtain tangible data to learn more about something that they may always have been wondering about—for example, a lack of equity in access to drinking water that meets government standards for clean drinking water. 

Designing this lesson plan also made me realize more than I did before that Environmental Science is intersectional. This is true from a science perspective—learning about Environmental Science means building an understanding of concepts that are typically compartmentalized in Chemistry, Biology or Physics and more. 

Engaging with environmental issues in real life means that you move in the intersection of the sciences, politics and policy making, and history. For example, on February 12, 2026, the EPA rescinded the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Findings and repealed all greenhouse gas emission related standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles. This places a class like Environmental Science in the middle of current events, and my students bring these events into my classroom. 

After a student presented the rescindment of the Endangerment Finding, other students came with lots of questions. Is CO2 not a greenhouse gas anymore? If it still is, how did the government decide that they don’t have to take action to curb emissions? Does climate change pose a threat to human life? I am grateful to them for that, and I will 100 percent try to create opportunities that will foster students to engage with current events like this at a deeper level. That type of feedback informs how I like to plan lessons.

In my experience, designing lessons that are inspired by students, and that center around real issues, and real data, is one of the most rewarding ways to work with young people. A lesson that creates a space for young people to investigate their own lived experience more deeply almost naturally leads to students taking ownership of their own learning. I think that is my favorite way of teaching—providing the infrastructure for students to take the lead in learning. 

I think that learning is at its most effective when, one way or another, students recognize the real-world relevance of what’s happening in class. I have been teaching for almost 20 years, and I still believe that somewhere, deep inside, all students are curious, and they have questions about the natural world and their own bodies. 

My goal as an educator is to find that place of curiosity and create opportunities for learning right there. Feedback loops are an important concept in Environmental Science. They are also important in my relationship with my students and my classes as a whole.