Education & Empowerment

Mycelium Youth Network prepares youth in the East Bay Area — who are most vulnerable to and already feeling the effects of environmental racism — for climate change. The organization uses a merger of indigenous environmental traditions that emphasize youth environmental stewardship and relationship building alongside a rigorous STEAM curriculum that focuses on practical hands-on skills for climate resilience and mitigation that youth create and implement in their homes and local communities. They empower youth to grow as visionary leaders and budding environmentalists, connect with ancestral teachings, and trust in the wisdom of the natural world.

Mycelium offers climate resilient education programs in classroom settings, nurtures youth leadership councils, and organizes gaming for justice events, among many activities.  The organization’s latest project is a shareable compendium of ten environmental justice adventures, a collection of Dungeons & Dragons style games meant to combat climate doomism. While the games in the compendium are inspired by the landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area, they actually take place in a magical realist world called the Mycelium Universe. Whether it’s air pollution, rising sea levels, or gentrification, the problems that exist within this universe are also real world problems. But unlike the real world, this imagined world knows no bounds, giving youth players more creative freedom to uncover answers to the most pressing social and climate issues.