Photograph courtesy of Johanna Bearg
Students from more than thirty different schools across the Bay Area gathered on Crissy Field on October 11 to speak about their environmental projects in front of Dr. Jane Goodall.
Berkeley High School (BHS) has a number of classes that are part of the English Learner (EL) Newcomer Program, a program that offers courses to students whose first language is not English and who are recent immigrants. Johanna Bearg’s students in English Learning Development (ELD) Advanced Biology come from all around the world — the different first languages spoken out of all of them amount to fifteen. Her classes have recently started a project based on Roots & Shoots, a youth-led community action program developed by British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace, Dr. Jane Goodall. She is widely known as the world’s foremost chimpanzee expert. Goodall’s program focuses on thousands of youth making a positive change in their communities by creating and organizing service campaigns to address the issues that they are passionate about.
Titled “Plastics in Our Oceans,” Bearg’s students’ project aims at saving marine animal lives and protecting the environment by cleaning up discarded plastic on the Bay Area shoreline. The main problems that the students witnessed in their communities were garbage and littering, as they have a detrimental impact on local wildlife.
According to Bearg, “My Advanced Biology classes worked together to map our community and choose an area to create a project for. Many of my students expressed an interest in working on keeping plastic out of the ocean.”
Around 68 BHS EL Newcomer students and seven teachers attended the Roots & Shoots celebration, including thirty of Bearg’s students. Six of her students volunteered to present their poster to other students from different schools at the Roots & Shoots celebration, conservation partners from the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) , and to Goodall herself: Yumna Al, Laiba Ghufran, Marielle Guepnang Nyabeye, Hicham Hamze, Maxim Von Lieres und Wilkau, and Arsema Weldeyohans.
Bearg noted that the students were well spoken and thoughtful in a really high stress situation, as they had cameras in their faces and a huge crowd around them as they replied to Dr. Goodall’s questions and comments. After the event ended, a few people came up to her to Ms. Bearg to express how impressed they were by her students. “It was a very proud moment for me as a teacher to see my students present and feel so passionate about something,” Bearg said.
After the fair, the students became more inspired to help the environment and the natural world. Junior Maxim Von Lieres, an ELD student who presented, believed that getting the chance to see all of the other projects at the fair and how many ways there are to help make a difference was very inspiring. She noted that she was nervous but that it was an honor to talk to Goodall. “When you talk to her, you can see all that she has done [to help the environment],” Von Lieres said.
BHS junior Laiba Ghufran said that having the opportunity to present to Goodall made a significant impact on her and her ability to make a change in the world. According to Ghufran, “It was a great honor for us to present in front of her. After speaking to her, it made me feel more confident, like I can do much more in my life.”
The ELD Advanced Biology project is fairly young. The classes are currently in the process of planning and organizing a large spring cleanup through the City of Berkeley at the Berkeley Marina, and hope to make it a community event.
Bearg said that her classes still have a lot more work to do on the project, but the students have gained an extremely valuable experience through presenting to Goodall.
In class, the EL Newcomer students are continuing to spend time learning about how plastic ends up in the ocean and how it affects marine life. Through this, they hope to strengthen their Roots & Shoots project in order to make a difference. “We can change things in our environment, even if we are just one person. Taking that first step can change the world,” Ghufran said.