School Electrification Spotlight: Electrify Cincinnati Schools Team

School Electrification Spotlight: Electrify Cincinnati Schools Team

School Electrification Spotlight: Electrify Cincinnati Schools Team

By: Lucas Whitaker

 

Over the past few months, we’ve seen our School Electrification Challenge teams make significant progress – on their goals of electrifying our schools and reducing carbon emissions. This month, we’d like to give a special shoutout to our Cincinnati Team!  From organizing school events to interviewing high-level STEM professionals to meeting multiple times with the school board, they’ve made spectacular progress in their goals!

 

We’ve seen the Electrify Cincinnati Schools Team get creative, utilizing great graphics to educate students  and  parents of  the Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) on the transition to clean energy, allowing them to gain a much deeper understanding of the issue of climate change. They’ve held numerous school-wide meetings to educate their students and faculty about the clean energy transition and how it should be addressed The team has made huge leaps with the Cincinnati school board as well, holding several meetings to voice their concerns with officials, making an impact on electrification policy in their area and cutting deeper into the more technical aspects of the issue, while also forging positive relationships with officials.  In addition they’ve also rallied support from the city council in the campaign as well, and garnered a much greater interest from the Cincinnati government.

 

The Cincinnati Team outlines their plan to electrify schools in their district.

 

Aside from public meetings and school-wide events, the team has made extensive use of social media through designing and posting campaign flyers that have gained an incredible amount of attention so far! In addition, students have circulated a petition in support of the Renewable Energy and Electrification Resolution throughout the community. Students from the Walnut Hills High School community have also facilitated a school-wide event with renowned theoretical physicist and climate activist Dr. Nayana Shah, where they had an incredibly productive and enlightening conversation about activism and sustainability.

 

The Cincinnati Team thanks their school board after a successful passing of the school electrification resolution.

 

Saving the best for last, we’d like to highlight a groundbreaking victory. After presenting the Renewable Energy & Electrification Resolution to the CPS School Board, the resolution passed UNANIMOUSLY!! This is the first resolution to be passed through the Great School Electrification Challenge! Congratulations Cincinnati for the amazing work you’ve accomplished!

Vinay Karthik is a junior at the Wardlaw + Hartridge school. He is the Communications Team Lead at CCL National Youth Action Team and helps develop and optimize the youth climate website, blog, and Instagram account. As part of the CCL Edison chapter, he has published op-eds in newspapers, been a part of multiple grassroots advocacy events, and lobbied his local congressmen. Outside of CCL, he is an independent AI & Climate Researcher, a FXB Climate Advocate Ambassador, and a member of the Global Coordination Team at YOUNGO, the United Nations youth constituency of the UNFCCC.