Over the past few years, Lookout In the Classroom has offered free access to our local news coverage to Santa Cruz County’s high schoolers, high school educators and college students. We’ve also visited classrooms and held workshops for high school educators covering pertinent topics, such as elections and the role of journalism in society.
The goal has been to get students engaged with different aspects of learning and local current events, connecting lessons directly to students’ lives.
This January, we were able to launch the next phase of Lookout’s education initiative – Lookout for Teachers. Alongside this is the ability to offer free memberships to middle school teachers, as well. At the start of 2026, we partnered with educators at Santa Cruz’s Mission Hill Middle School to create a plan for our first middle school visit.
Sallie Corbin and Christy Fairbairn, two science teachers at Mission Hill Middle School, were working with their seventh graders on a climate change research and outreach project. The students were encouraged to investigate not just the cause and reality of climate change, but also to think about possible solutions and how they could help others understand the threat.
Corbin and Fairbairn acknowledged that climate change can be confusing to talk about, even for adults. They reached out to Lookout, hoping to collaborate on a classroom visit tailored to supplement the seventh grade climate change unit.
We discussed what would be most helpful and meaningful for the students and developed a lesson plan with a focus on science communication. Corbin wanted her students to understand that a crucial part of science is the ability to communicate it to others. This is especially important regarding climate change, where the scientific complexity of the topic, misinformation and politicization have muddled some Americans’ understanding of the facts.
Our lesson plan covered why local journalism matters, since science itself doesn’t necessarily create change, but clear communication can. Climate change isn’t isolated science, but a human story with broad implications.
In about an hour of discussion, we helped students identify effective science storytelling and understand the journalistic process – information-gathering, interview techniques, the value of talking to the people affected/interested, how to decide what to include and how to consider one’s audience.
Cassidy Beach, a master’s degree student in science communication at UC Santa Cruz and an intern with Lookout, was on hand to share her knowledge as a science communicator. Beach has experience teaching a wide range of ages via previous roles in seasonal outdoor education and community programming, with audience consideration remaining constant throughout her experience.
“It’s interesting how you have to engage different parts of your brain depending on who you’re speaking to,” she said. “The core goals of science communication stay the same, but the approach can vary a lot depending on both the message and the background of the audience.” For example, Beach noted using hands-on activities and visual analogies for some, and more technical aspects connected to everyday experiences for others.
“At the end of the day,” she said, “it’s really about making complex scientific ideas relatable, meeting people where they are and building on what they already understand.”
We left Mission Hill inspired and optimistic, refreshed by the students’ engagement and enthusiasm to participate, hopefully having also equipped them with some research and writing fundamentals to use in their upcoming climate change projects.
Not long after, we were invited back to Mission Hill to view the student projects at their Climate Change Symposium. Some were more nervous or hesitant than others, but they all displayed creativity and innovation. In addition to the papers they wrote, they communicated scientific ideas through a wealth of media and modalities. There were interactive games, sculptures, comic books, news anchor-style videos and more.
Beach reflected: “It was fascinating to see how each student used their own skills and creativity to create a project that felt genuine to them. Every student we spoke to really lit up when talking about their work. That’s what learning science should be about: getting people curious, engaged and excited about their own ideas and discoveries.”
These first two middle school visits – visits where students are able to learn, be curious and put their knowledge and curiosity to practice – are prime examples of the type of community-building Lookout hopes to keep doing and growing with.
You can find more information about Lookout’s educational resources here and reach out to coordinate a class visit of your own here.
Ava Salinas is a student at UC Santa Cruz and an intern at Lookout Santa Cruz through the Humanities EXCEL program led by the UC Santa Cruz Humanities Division with strategic support from The Humanities Institute.