Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

May 18, 2023 | rethinkingschools.org | Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

In the spring of 2016, children in Portland, Oregon, walked into their school buildings to find the drinking fountains shut off, the fixtures dramatically wrapped in plastic and tape, and instructions: Do not drink the water. High levels of lead had been found in the water in almost every single building in Portland Public Schools.

Jan 31, 2023 | rethinkingschools.org | Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

For years, I would coax my 9th graders into the dreary, windowless computer lab for 10-15 minutes so they could complete an online ecological footprint calculator. I wanted students to see that first-world consumption patterns were unsustainable. Students’ reactions to the activity were formulaic. My mostly white, mostly affluent students expressed shock that if everyone on the globe lived like them, we would need four (or five or six) Earths.