Forrest Radarian

Bio

Experience or expertise/projects of note: 

• I’ve taught science for 13 years to students in the state of Arizona.  
• I currently teach all high school science courses for students grades 9-12 at Grand Canyon High School, including Environmental Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, AP Biology, and AP Environmental Science.  
• I lead a trip for students to participate in a whitewater rafting trip in conjunction with Grand Canyon Youth and the support of Grand Canyon National Park and Outdoor Leadership Academy that provides a focus around climate change and environmental advocacy.

Reasons I’m excited about this project: 

• The opportunity to contribute to an evidence-based curriculum freely available to teachers on climate change.  
• To gain exposure to ideas, learning, and professional development to help me improve my craft on teaching climate change and environmental education.  
• Living in the Southwest, and especially in Grand Canyon National Park, means the heat and water scarcity effects of climate change are constantly before me.  For my students, it is a part of their everyday lives as they consider wildfire danger living in a conifer forest, water availability from the Colorado River, snowpack levels throughout the mountain west, growing crops in a region experiencing aridification, and health impacts – especially for students living in the Navajo, Hopi, Havasupai, and other surrounding tribal nations.  For students of these groups, disparate water access and increasing temperatures pose significant cultural and daily challenges.  As the Grand Canyon region feel the impacts of climate change, my students will also see the consequences in the species composition of the area, such as heat stress of the juniper-pinyon forests.  
• This project is an opportunity to help my students become democratically engaged citizens who will act on issues of climate science.