Environmental Education at an Under-resourced and Multicultural Bellingham School: Reflections on AmeriCorps, Culturally…

This internship report details a year of an AmeriCorps service with Common Threads Farm, working at Cordata Elementary's school garden and teaching cooking classes in Bellingham, WA. A comprehensive summary of the systemic segregation of the Bellingham School District elucidates how northern schools like Cordata are under-resourced and underserved compared to Bellingham's more central, wealthier neighborhoods. The author compares her experiences to that of the characters on ABC's Abbott Elementary, discussing the importance of culturally responsive teaching pedagogies when working with multicultural school communities and collective, grass-roots movement for education reform in under-resourced schools.