The Block Party was planned out in a span of a 6 weeks. Our Young Environmental Justice Advocates met with UCSD’s Climate Justice Action Research Scholars twice. The students met at the UCSD Climate Action Lab in the new sixth college for the early stages of planning and for a bonus tour of UCSD led by the Climate Justice Action Research Scholars.

Initial planning consisted of a small lecture prepared by Profesor Lewis and a brainstorming session where the YEJA students mixed with the Climate Justice Action Research Scholars in small groups.

The small group discussions served to connect both groups of students.

After their brainstorming session Professor Lewis and our Program Director Raphael Lagoc began to lead the main group discussion where all students shared their ideas.

After the planning session the Climate Justice scholars took our YEJA students on a small tour of UCSD and gathered for a final photoshoot in front of the Climate Action Lab and at the Lawn of UCSD’s Sixth College.

Both the planning session and the bonus tour served to expose the Young Environmental Justice Advocates to the University and university student who, as they realize, are aspiring advocates just like them.

The second time the students met was at Ocean View Growing Grounds. At this point the students all had a better sense of what type of activities they wanted to be a part of. Having them all plan out at OVGG served to picture where in the garden would each activity be. By the end of the day they all went home knowing what activity they would be leading on the day of the event.

Once all students arrived they split into random groups mixing the YEJA advocate and the Climate Justice Scholars to recap the previous brainstorm session from at UCSD and brainstorm any new and narrowed down ideas.

While the students were discussing their ideas, our Program director and Professor Lewis were giving our visitor Professor Pezzoli a behind the scenes on the Block Party event.

Most students were having their discussion under the large bonsai tree but this group of students took advantage of the Meditation and succulent garden.

After much discussion our program director began checking in on the students, knowing it was time to move onto the next activity.

To their surprise the following activity served as a break with Prof. Lewis introducing a fun game of Bingo!

Bingo!

This group received prizes for winning the bingo game, Prof. Lewis used this as an opportunity to show the type of small prizes that ended up being given in the day of the event!

After the break our Program Director gathered the group to tour the garden and look closer onto the locations of where they were to set up the different activities.

The arts group worked on The block Party’s banner. They are the same group who came up with the title of the event!

In addition to the large poster, they used two canvases for a separate banner. These two banners were placed in front of OVGG, visible for the community and passerby’s.

Enjoying the cool breeze under the pepper tree, these students continued their discussion on the planned activities and what materials they would require.

The final part of this planning session was having the different groups present their specific idea, activity, and roles that they planned to include in the official event date.

This group presented their idea of including an arts station where visitors would paint over used glasses and pots to make their own flower pots.

The meditation and mental health group presented their idea of using the succulent and meditation garden at OVGG and setting up official resources from different organizations that focused on mental health.

Finally, the “Let’s talk about Climate Justice” group presented their activity where they planned to have homemade sweets and stickers as gifts for visitors who took the time to talk about issues in climate change with the students.