Design Early Education Facilities Now To Meet The Challenge Of Climate Change

By Angie Garling, Jeff Vincent, Isabelle Donohoe, and Joe Fretwell, EdSource

CALIFORNIA — Children born today will bear the brunt of the burden of climate change despite having the least responsibility for causing it. Growing calls to position climate change as a child’s rights crisis stem from clear evidence of the negative impacts high temperatures, poor air quality, and stress associated with living through natural disasters have on the most important developmental years of a person’s life.

Centering child health and well-being in climate policy — specifically through the lens of space, facilities, and the built environment — is a critical piece of building resilient communities and ensuring all children can live healthy and fulfilling lives.

As parents and facilities experts, we urge policymakers, financial institutions, funders and communities to prioritize our youngest children as we address the climate emergency. A new paper published jointly by our organizations, the Low Income Investment Fund and the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools, identifies a set of core policy recommendations to ensure children and the spaces they live and play in are at the forefront of the battle for climate resilience and preparedness.

Young children have their whole lives ahead of them — any climate and environmental degradation at an early age can result in a lifetime of lost opportunity. As climate change becomes more visceral in our daily lives, now is the time to prioritize young children as we plan for the future of public infrastructure and the environment.

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Angie Garling is vice president of early care and education at the Low Income Investment Fund. Jeff Vincent, Ph.D., is a director at the Center for Cities and Schools at UC Berkeley. Isabelle Donohoe is a graduate student in the department of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley. Joe Fretwell is a program officer for early care and education at the Low Income Investment Fund.

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EdSource works to engage Californians on key education challenges with the goal of enhancing learning success. It does so by providing timely, useful and accurate information to key education stakeholders and the larger public; advancing awareness of major education initiatives being implemented in California and nationally; and highlighting effective models and strategies intended to improve student outcomes, as well as identifying areas that are in need of repair or reform