PK-12 Teaching & Learning Committee

Our Purpose

Increase teachers' pedagogical capacity and expertise to teach climate and environmental justice issues and provide students with opportunities to explore solutions by:

  • enhancing UC and CSU teacher preparation programming and teacher professional learning programming; and

  • piloting, evaluating, and productively adapting the new K–12 statewide climate change and environmental justice curriculum (currently under development) across the UC and CSU system schools of education.

The three ECCLPs committee focus areas are essential for an intersectional approach to supporting PK–12 districts in accessing community educators, universities, and current statewide efforts.

Meet Naehee Kwun, the PK–12 Teaching & Learning Committee Lead

Meet Naehee Kwun, Coordinator, Lecturer, and Field Supervisor, CalTeach Math & Science Program, UC Irvine who will play a vital role in leading our PK–12 teaching and learning committee.

Meet the Committee

  • Amy Knight, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Education Program Manager, Center of Global Justice, UC San Diego

    Amy Knight

    Education Program Manager, Center of Global Justice, UC San Diego

  • Brandon Louie, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Director of Community Engagement, Center for Regional Change, UC Davis

    Brandon Louie

    Director of Community Engagement, Center for Regional Change, UC Davis

  • Carli Baker, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Grant, Sustainability, and Operations Manager, UC Berkeley

    Carli Baker

    Grant, Sustainability, and Operations Manager, UC Berkeley

  • Christine Lee, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Education Research Associate, UCLA

    Christine Lee

    Education Research Associate, UCLA

  • Fawn Canady, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Associate Professor of Curriculum Students Secondary Science Education, Sonoma State

    Fawn Canady

    Associate Professor of Curriculum Students Secondary Science Education, Sonoma State

  • Heather Clark

    Assistant Professor, School of Education, CSUDH

  • Lauren Fletcher, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Assistant Professor of Elementary Reading Education, Stanislaus State

    Lauren Fletcher

    Assistant Professor of Elementary Reading Education, Stanislaus State

  • Megan Sulsberger, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Associate Professor of Science Education and Leadership, CSU Monterey Bay

    Megan Sulsberger

    Associate Professor of Science Education and Leadership, CSU Monterey Bay

  • Noah Asher Golden, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Associate Professor of Secondary Teacher Education, Cal State Long Beach

    Noah Asher Golden

    Associate Professor of Secondary Teacher Education, Cal State Long Beach

  • Phil Albers, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Education Director, Save California Salmon

    Phil Albers

    Education Director, Save California Salmon

  • Shelley Brooks, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Academic Coordinator, California History-Social Science Project, UC Davis

    Shelley Brooks

    Academic Coordinator, California History-Social Science Project, UC Davis

  • Stephanie Sisk-Hilton, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Professor of Elementary Science Education, San Francisco State

    Stephanie Sisk-Hilton

    Professor of Elementary Science Education, San Francisco State

  • Tina Korani, ECCLPs PK–12 Teaching and Learning Committee Member and Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, San José State

    Tina Korani

    Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, San José State

  • Lilly Lopez

    Administrative Support

Committee Member Bios

  • Amy has long been an advocate for PK–12 teacher climate literacy. From 2013–2016, she taught high school in Miami where she actively sought out opportunities to bring climate into her writing and psychology classrooms. These experiences, coupled with firsthand knowledge of sea level rise, compelled her to obtain an MA in Climate Science and Policy from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego in 2017. Her capstone project was the product of a partnership between Scripps and the San Diego County Office of Education and was used by the California Department of Education as a teaching framework for in-service teachers to support the statewide rollout of NGSS and teaching global climate change. Amy spent the following two years working in education outreach at the Salk Institute coaching scientists on effective communication strategies. Wanting an even deeper perspective on the social impacts and drivers of climate change, Amy pursued a graduate degree in Sociology in 2019. Her research focused on fire mapping and climate adaptation strategies in San Diego County. In addition to her new role as the Education Program Manager at the UC San Diego Center on Global Justice, Amy serves as a whale watching naturalist during the Eastern Pacific gray whale migration.

  • Brandon is the Director of Community Engagement for the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. His work supports youth participatory action research (YPAR) and intergenerational teams' use of publicly-available data and mapping tools. He also helped develop the Community Futures, Community Lore website and its free online YPAR toolkit and resources. Brandon brings sixteen years of combined expertise in youth development, PAR, community organizing, and international agricultural development. He serves on the SETA–Sacramento Works Youth Committee and the 4–H Access, Equity and Belonging Committee and is an adjunct faculty member in the sociology department at Sacramento City College. He holds a MS in community development from UC Davis and a BA in history with a minor in theater and performance studies from UC Berkeley.

  • Charli Baker is an experienced Environmental Scientist and Science Educator with a demonstrated history of inspiring science and conservation through immersive education, hands-on learning, and citizen science.

  • Christine is a research associate at CONNECT Research. She received her PhD from the Urban Schooling Division at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. She engages in participatory design-based research and teacher-researcher collaborations to study how learning occurs through play. Her research focuses on designing and implementing play-based learning, how play can support instructional interactions, the importance of affect and identity, and service-learning.

  • Fawn is an Associate Professor of Adolescent and Digital Literacies at Sonoma State where she teaches literacy across the curriculum and English Language Arts teacher education. Fawn also leads the educational technology area of emphasis graduate courses. She is the Co-director of Human/Nature: An Exploration of Place, Story, and Climate Futurism, a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute. Fawn co-chairs the English Language Arts Teacher Education Commission on Climate Justice, Inquiry, and Practice. Fawn is also a naturalist at Sonoma State’s Osborn Preserve. She is excited to connect her lifelong commitment to climate justice with her current and prior experiences in education including her role as a high school English teacher at a Career and Technical Academy, district-level positions supporting teachers, instructional design, and district-level curriculum and standards task forces.

  • PK-12 Teaching and Learning Committee Lead

    Heather Clark is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Teacher Education at CSU Dominguez Hills. She received her PhD in Urban Schooling from UCLA and was a high school science teacher. Heather's teaching and research are dedicated to equity-oriented science teaching and learning with a focus on understanding how youth learn climate science in the pursuit of climate justice and how teachers learn to support those pursuits by developing justice-centered science pedagogies.

  • Lauren is a new Assistant Professor of Elementary Reading Education in the Department of Teacher Education at Stanislaus State. Lauren was born and raised in New Hampshire and taught for eight years at the elementary level in the Philippines, Azerbaijan, Oregon, and Kentucky. Lauren deeply loves and respects the outdoors and enjoys hiking, rock climbing, camping, and researching and exploring new places while getting to know new communities and their history. Lauren recently graduated with a PhD from the University of Louisville. Her research investigates students’ meaning-making processes, culturally sustaining pedagogies in literacy events, and children's literature. Currently, she is examining how environmental activism is portrayed in children’s literature and how teacher candidates view bringing activism into the classroom.

  • Lilly Lopez is a recent graduate from UCLA with a B.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies and a minor in Conservation Biology. Since then has worked as a naturalist for the Palos Verdes Land Conservancy, where she has helped implement educational outreach programs and helped manage their two nature centers. In addition, she has also collaborated in various community-based research projects and internships that have focused on the ecological composition of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and surrounding areas.

    Lilly’s passion for environmental justice and climate change has led her to inspire individuals to be active members of environmental movements within their own communities. Some of her favorite hobbies include backpacking, camping, and running throughout the South Bay!

  • Dr. Sulsberger is an Associate Professor in the Department of Education and Leadership at CSU Monterey Bay. She received a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus in Science Education from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. At CSU Monterey Bay, she teaches K–8 Science Methods to candidates in the Elementary Education Credential Program. She also designs and leads professional learning opportunities with area districts and informal learning institutions concentrated on increasing Ecological Literacy and STEM readiness among PK–12 teachers. Her research interests include STEM education, environmental education, teacher identity, teacher preparation, and the intersection of these topics.

  • Naehee Kwun has been in education for over 17 years as a teacher, instructional coach, mentor, curriculum designer, consultant, and educational leader. She currently serves the UCI CalTeach community as the network coordinator, program designer, lecturer, and supervisor. She collaborates with fellow educators and university partners to design and facilitate professional learning experiences for teachers developing and refining their culturally sustaining pedagogy. Her commitment to social justice is embodied in the utility of mathematics to understand and respond to social issues that impact local communities. She speaks at and organizes local and national conferences to inspire and empower other teachers in their commitments to shift math education to be relevant for all learners and foster student agency to use mathematics as a tool to fight for justice.

    Her portfolio can be found at www.mathingforequity.org Naehee is a proud first generation Korean American, a loving wife and mother, and an avid baker.

  • Noah is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at Cal State Long Beach. His research is grounded in literacy practices and identities, and is situated within critical and sociocultural approaches to literacies scholarship.

    The thread that ties all of Noah’s work together is a deep-seated belief that our work in education can and should make powerful differences in people’s lives. There are important things at stake in our research, methodological and theoretical discussions, teaching, and service in multiple fields. It is for this reason that he believes that our work should be in dialogue with the members of multiple communities: fellow scholars, practitioners, community activists, parents, and students. In his past work as a high school English teacher, literacy coach, and instructor in teacher education programs, he felt that there were many unnecessary borders between these domains. He works alongside others to engender collaborations that can transcend these artificial divisions.

  • Shelley holds a PhD in United States History from UC Davis, where she studied California environmental history. In her capacity with the California History-Social Science Project, she provides professional learning programming for California classroom teachers and authors classroom resources. An emphasis of her work is environmental literacy and environmental justice education across the disciplines. She is a member of the the statewide California Environmental Literacy Initiative and the California Environmental Education Foundation, and teaches US History courses at UC Davis. Shelley’s book, Big Sur: The Making of a Prized California Landscape (UC Press, 2017), won the Weyerhaeuser Book Award for conservation history.

  • Stephanie is a professor in the Department of Elementary Education at San Francisco State. Her teaching and research focus on the intersections of children’s science learning, cognition and development, and collaborative teacher learning. Her current research explores how young children come to understand and use challenging science concepts when they are engaged in pedagogically ambitious approaches to teaching and learning. She also investigates how teachers develop and share science teaching knowledge through collaborative professional learning. Dr. Sisk-Hilton leads professional learning experiences for early childhood and elementary school teachers throughout the bay area with the goal of developing classroom environments where every child has rich opportunities to grow in their science knowledge and identity.

  • Tina, an Assistant Professor at San José State, is passionate about using design to communicate important socio-cultural messages to diverse groups of learners, with a particular focus on climate conservation and communication. Her work centers on two primary areas at the forefront of her research: leveraging new media and technology to enhance learning, equity, and accessibility, and using interactive and immersive storytelling to foster empathy and enhance message delivery. As the co-founder of San José State’s Storytelling Lab, Tina is a faculty advisor who familiarizes students with emerging technologies and improves their critical thinking, teamwork, and innovation skills. As an Adobe Education Leader, Tina is renowned for her innovative teaching methods and successful integration of technology in the classroom. Her work has garnered numerous grants and awards, including funding from Adobe, META, Unity, the City of San José, AGU, CUAHSI, and several others.