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Literacy for Environmental Justice (LEJ) is a youth empowerment organization that works towards environmental justice in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco by engaging urban youth of color through green jobs, youth development, and environmental education. In an urban landscape absent of charismatic megafauna like polar bears, but where the charismatic megafauna are adults and youth who are fired up about engaging youth in culturally and socially relevant opportunities, young people begin to take ownership of their communities and environment as they engage in economic justice, open space advocacy, urban planning redevelopment issues, and even a little habitat restoration in a historically black neighborhood with large Asian and Latino immigrant populations. LEJ recently opened the EcoCenter at Heron’s Head Park, one of the only known urban buildings that is off-the-grid from the city’s electrical and sewage systems. As an environmental education center, the EcoCenter is a model example for green buildings and one of the first environmental justice education centers anywhere. LEJ will temporarily transport the EcoCenter to Detroit as participants will learn strategies from LEJ's place-based curriculum, "Calling Nature Home," a curriculum for K-12 based on CA State Science Standards to make environmental education culturally relevant and competent.
