Mycelium Youth Network

Mycelium Youth Network (MYN) prepares frontline youth for hopeful & imaginative leadership in climate adaptation, mitigation, & resilience through hands-on ancestral approaches & STEAM that emphasize stewardship & relationship-building. We currently operate four core NGSS-aligned programs within and across Bay Area public high schools: Climate Resilient Schools, Youth Leadership Council, Data Warriors, Gaming for Justice, and most recently we have launched our pilot Leadership in Storytelling cohort. From “Science for Survival” and “Clean Air is a Right” modules to Gaming for Justice, where students imagine just futures through collaborative fantasy role-playing games, we blend ancestral knowledge with STEAM learning to build frontline youth leadership in adaptation, mitigation, and resilience. Across all programs, MYN incorporates socio-emotional tools to address climate anxiety; cultural and ancestral practices and knowledge, participatory and community based research, youth-led data justice, storytelling and narrative building. Recent and upcoming youth projects include building a school water catchment system; creating and playing a live action role game (LARP) on a Bay Area shoreline; facilitating a multi-year toxic soil bioremediation at an Oakland high school; training youth as storytellers and the power of narrative change. On the national front, our executive Director and Founder Lil Milagro Henriquez brings her expertise to the Advisory Board for the American Public Health Association's Center for Climate Health and Equity in addition to the National Academy of Medicine's Climate Communities Network.