Math teacher Robin Midiri contacted the teachers, administration members, and district employees of Oak Park High School and Oak Park Unified School District over summer in an effort to promote a cross-curricular program concerning sustainability. Since the beginning of the 2019-20 school year, many OPHS teachers, administration and district employees have been meeting to create this program that advocates for environmental awareness.

“[The] idea occurred to me as a person who will possibly be a future grandmother, just thinking about our future generations and understanding from the math side, how finite our resources are,” Midiri said.

Teachers have been looking to incorporate U.N. goal No. 12, responsible consumption and production within their curriculum and saw this specific goal as a broad enough access point for all subjects so that they may incorporate sustainability. Science teacher Winnie Litten has been teaching biomimicry in her biology classes through an architectural project.

While some teachers have incorporated sustainability lessons into their already existing classes, others are looking to create specific classes dedicated to the concept of sustainability.

“I’ve been trying to create this class about how the world works called Geopolitics in the World Today … My expertise would be sustainability from an economic standpoint,” Social Sciences teacher DJ Cook said.

Cook wrote in a summarization of the class that he would focus on teaching “the economic viability of transitioning our domestic and global economies into a more sustainable model that will not only reverse the effects of climate change, but benefit all countries from an economic standpoint.”

English teacher David Kinberg is also developing a different class on sustainability literature. The classes will play on similar ideas, and Cook encourages students to take both classes. Both classes have passed the curriculum council, and are currently waiting for board approval.

The pre-existing classes which are looking to incorporate sustainability lessons are reshaping the curriculum right now, and hope to put it in place by second semester.