RCE Greater Phoenix
RCE Greater Phoenix aims to build an active network of organisations from the community at large and from Arizona State University. Community stakeholders include government, businesses, civil society organisations, and educational providers. ASU partners include research labs as well as the partnership between Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and School of Sustainability, with the support of ASU’s Knowledge Exchange for Resilience and Global Futures Laboratory.
This diverse group of stakeholders is committed to working together to address our region’s most critical sustainability challenges through education, while providing opportunities for collaboration, learning, and impact.
RCE Greater Phoenix aims to foster cross-sectoral collaborations to empower all learners, especially historically marginalised youth, to access high quality sustainability education, both formal and informal, and engage in meaningful learning experiences that contribute to sustainability outcomes for the region.
The Greater Phoenix metropolitan region is a large, interconnected urban area situated within the natural boundaries of a desert valley surrounded by mountains. It is one of the ten largest cities in the U.S. with an estimated population of over 1.7 million people and the fastest growing population centres in the U.S. The Phoenix Metropolitan Area comprises Maricopa County (estimated population of 4,420,568), and Pinal County (2020 population: 425,264). A characteristic of the region and Arizona’s history is the diverse blend of racial, ethnic and cultural identities. The State of Arizona is built on the lands of 22 federally recognised tribes, having inhabited this land for centuries and today holding the highest number of indigenous populations nationwide. Maricopa County is located in the Salt River Valley on the ancestral territories of Indigenous peoples, including the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Pee Posh (Maricopa) Indian Communities, whose care and keeping of these lands allows us to be here today.
As a rapidly expanding area situated in a precarious desert environment, the Phoenix metropolitan region faces significant sustainability challenges. Phoenix has recently been called the most unsustainable city in the world, especially in terms of air quality, heat island effect, groundwater availability, and quality education. Stakeholders across a range of sectors, including schools and universities, businesses, non-profits, and public administrators, are starting to address these issues, emphasising sustainability education as key to developing solutions to these critical social, technical, cultural, and environmental challenges faced by Arizona.
(Photo credit: RCE Greater Phoenix)
Our goal is to co-create new formal and non-formal education programs - as well as to mobilise the existing ones - with all community members, through meaningful, equitable and participatory learning experiences to contribute to a more sustainable future in the region. Our work focuses on five SDGs primarily:
Goals:
● SDG 4: Quality Education - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
● SDG 5: Gender Equality - Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
● SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities - Reduce inequality within and among our communities
● SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities - Make our cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable
● SDG 13: Climate Action - take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
To promote sustainability education in support of the SDGs, we pursue 4 approaches:
Pathways: Supporting marginalised youth towards diverse access to quality education.
Collaboration: Building partnerships across sectors to strengthen existing and new educational activities.
Capacity: Building capacity for quality sustainability education to dynamically integrate into diverse learning contexts.
Grants and Research: Advancing use-inspired and participatory research and utilising it to inform practice, policy, leadership, and evaluation.
Arizona State University
RCE Greater Phoenix Secretariat
Alejandra Enriquez Gates, Program Manager
Contact email: alejandra.enriquez@asu.edu
Name of organisation: City of Phoenix
Role: Community Partner
Contact name: Darice J. Ellis, Sustainability Specialist
Contact email: darice.ellis@phoenix.gov
Name of organisation: City of Tempe
Role: Community Partner
Contact name: Dr. Braden Kay, Sustainability Director
Contact email: Braden_kay@tempe.gov
Name of organisation: Mesa Community College
Role: Community Partner
Contact name: Erianne M. Saffell Ph.D., Faculty Cultural Science
Contact email: saffell@mesacc.edu
Name of organisation: Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Teachers Academy
Role: Teacher Professional Development, program at ASU
Contact name: Molly Cashion
Contact email: Molly.Cashion@asu.edu
Name of organisation: Alhambra Elementary School District. Community Relations
Role: Community Partner
Contact name: Gabriel Gamino, Resource Development Coordinator
Contact email: communityrelations@alhambraesd.org
Name of organisation: Echo Canyon School,
Scottsdale Unified School District
Role: Community Partner
Contact name: Ms. Kathleen Hughes, Principal
Contact email: khughes@susd.org
Name of organisation: ASU Social Embeddedness Network
Role: ASU Program Partner
Contact name: Christina Ngo
Contact email: Christina.Ngo@asu.edu
Activities specific to individual organisations in the region, including leading organisations.
Pathways - Supporting marginalised youth towards diverse access to quality sustainability education.
- Undergraduate Certificate in Environmental Education (Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College)
- Undergraduate Certificate in Biomimicry (ASU Biomimicry Institute)
- Graduate Certificate in Biomimicry (ASU Biomimicry Institute)
- Graduate Certificate in Sustainability (ASU School of Sustainability)
- Rob & Melani Walton Sustainability Teachers’ Academies
Collaboration - Building partnerships across sectors to strengthen existing and new educational activities.
- Turn it Around! Youth Visions of Education Futures project, crowd-sourcing youth artwork locally and globally in an effort to (re)envision the role of education for more sustainable and ecologically just futures. ASU and Artists Literacies Institute
- Equity in Action project, addressing structural racism and the needs of people of color in frontline communities. City of Tempe Sustainability and Resilience Commission
- Education and information programs and events to connect local consumers and producers. Local First Arizona
- Quarterly regional virtual mixers, website forum, and monthly open space events. Arizona Association for Environmental Education
Capacity - Building capacity for quality sustainability education to dynamically integrate into diverse learning contexts.
- Program for K-12 schools to nominate students as sustainability officers in student councils. City of Phoenix, ASU School of Sustainability
- Various programs in place on garden learning, food waste and energy use. Alhambra Elementary School District
- Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project with the Madrid Neighborhood School, School Garden Working Group (various districts), ad-hoc student and teacher engagement (as requested) offered through Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Teachers Academy
- Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) pilot project on school cafeterias with Alhambra Elementary School District, Madrid Neighborhood School, and Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Teachers Academy
- Sow it Forward: Vertical Garden Project. Arizona Sustainability Alliance, Fowler Elementary School District, Kyrene del Norte Elementary, Los Niños Elementary
- Food Tech for the Future: Growing Digital Farmers Project. Arizona Sustainability Alliance, Glendale High School
- Southwest Desert School Gardener’s Almanac. ASU Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Teachers Academy, University of Arizona Community & School Garden Program
- Board games to train employees in ESD, resilience and emergency management. City of Tempe Sustainability and Resilience Commission, ASU School of Sustainability
- The Sustainability Opportunity intensive workshop for mid-career professionals. ASU School of Sustainability, Professional and Executive Education
Research - Advancing use-inspired and participatory research and utilising it to inform practice, policy, leadership, and evaluation.
- Garden learning through journaling in elementary schools. Echo Canyon Elementary, ASU School of Sustainability
- Cienega (Southwest desert wetland) Project at Red Mountain Campus. Mesa Community College, Arizona Game and Fish Department
- Participants in the Environmental Education Undergraduate Certification Program work with mentors to build knowledge and skills in the EE field. Arizona Association for Environmental Education
- Development of metrics for key competencies in sustainability education. ASU School of Sustainability
alejandra.enriquez@asu.edu
Payne Hall, 1000 S. Forest Mall, Suite 204, , P.O. Box 871611. Tempe, AZ 85287-1611