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Hello, and thanks for joining us, for Sustaining US here on KLCS Public Media.

I'm David Nazar.

We often hear the term "going green" a casual reference these days that can signify anything from green buildings to a future in green careers in a more environmentally friendly world.

We begin our broadcast with a visit to San Bernardino, California, for the third annual Future Green Leaders Summit, where over 500 middle schoolers are being connected to sustainable Stem careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Located about 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles is the Inland Empire and the city of San Bernardino, where hundreds of students from San Bernardino City Unified School District and Rialto Unified School District are meeting.

To find out more about a green career pathway to the future and all the many opportunities a world of sustainability and energy efficiency have to offer.

This is all part of the annual Future Green Leaders Summit.

The focus, in part, is on steam, science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

This unique summit is a collaboration of everyone from local government and private industry to various nonprofits in higher education.

And leading the way at this Green summit are organizations like the US Green Building Council, California, the Southern California Regional Energy Network, or So Cal Ren, as it's known.

There's the ACES program and an acronym for architecture, construction, engineering, sustainability.

Also here is the Inland Regional Energy Network and taking part of the many educators and green energy advocates, even creative artists and a world record breaking rapper on his world famous Battery tour.

They're all here for this summit, all of whom we're going to hear from during this report.

Time you give me in the great, great time to save the world.

And for three months, I'm trying to pay my version.

These 500 middle school students are immersing themselves in everything from solar batteries to 3D modeling, interactive games and workshops focusing on energy related careers.

Event organizers say this screen instruction is vital to give kids the proper classroom education on how to be part of what they believe is the increasingly green economy of California and the U.S.. Really, the intent is to engage kids.

You know they are the future.

To help, help inspire them that that they can be part of the change.

Our intent is to really, rotate this around different parts of the so-called red region so we can gauge different counties, different communities, and make sure we're sharing more of this message with kids throughout the region.

At the end of the day, everything comes home in a building.

Everything is connected to energy on some level.

So we have, you know, folks here in construction, right?

Folks that build buildings, build infrastructure, those things use energy, deploy energy.

Those are energy related jobs.

We have this trailer behind me.

We have all kinds of materials.

We have solar panels and batteries.

And those are things that connect to energy.

And so, kids can take the opportunity to learn that, hey, I can get into career.

They can place me on a track to be in these fields.

And the truth is, an energy company is a construction companies.

That buildings that that are being managed and owned by and developed.

We need folks who are project managers, meaning folks who are energy modelers.

We need folks who are out there doing all the little things and anyone can be a part of those jobs that could put them on a career trajectory to be to be in charge one day, right?

To be the boss running those operations.

They come out of high school, they can get training on how to be an electrician.

They can get training in how to be a sheet metal worker.

They can get training on how to be a plumber.

They can get trained on these things that are needed for us to build and develop the future.

Also, we're going to see a huge amount of building retrofits in the years to come.

And that's not just around solar and storage, that's around electrification and installing heat pumps in buildings.

That's around energy efficiency.

We're seeing how much lighting load there's going to use and how much cooling load, and those are jobs that are accessible for everyone that a good long term six figure paying careers.

Yeah.

One of the things I think we don't talk about enough, you know, we talk about climate change as example with kids, but we don't break down.

What does that really mean for them and their communities.

And so when we add more emissions, the atmosphere.

Yes, that that hurts the air quality.

And I just want to make sure we note that we're here in the Inland Empire today.

A lot of the distribution infrastructure, the manufacturing infrastructure that brings goods to the rest of our country comes through this area.

And so this area bears environmental impact.

And of that, to serve the rest of the country and for our consumerism at the end of the day.

So we need to offset that.

And what does it look like when we, when we reduce emissions?

Well, it looks like reduce heat is an area that's probably going to have 10 to 20 more days over 100 degrees a year by the middle of the century.

And even more than that by the end of the century.

How do we reduce those impacts?

It looks like having clean air, right?

How do we have clean air that we can breathe and have less chances of asthma?

How does it looks like having more access to clean water, more access to green space, which we know improves mental health?

And we need to get folks in those environments.

And so we want to share that vision with kids.

They understand, oh, this is what climate change means at my community.

It means reduce risk of fire.

It means cleaner water, better air.

Okay, I want to have those things.

How can I be part of that solution?

Well, it's very cliche, but this is our future and this is the community that they live in and that they don't know the impacts of what it means to have resiliency and to really focus on sustainability.

And one of the, you know, biggest impacts is our disadvantaged communities.

You know, air quality, you know, something like that.

Climate resiliency, they need to be involved.

And a lot of the times they don't know what that takes.

You know, following those career pathways.

And when one of the key things for our program is doing that handholding.

And so we follow them all the way from middle school to high school, even into college.

Our hope is that from this event, they go home with an expanded knowledge of the career opportunities that are available.

And the sustainability and energy efficiency fields.

And what ACS will do is follow up with all of the schools that are present today.

We have 11 schools from Goldsboro, all to Unified and San Bernardino Unified.

And we're going to be connecting with all of the teachers to make sure that this is not just today, that they're able to continue the momentum of today.

We're going to be in schools talking to parents and putting on workshops for students so that they continue, thinking about the possibilities in the sustainability and energy efficiency fields.

So here in San Bernardino, we have millions and millions of dollars that are being invested in clean energy, and our workforce needs to be aware of the opportunities that come with that, you know?

So, our goal again, is to really inspire our students, make them aware of the opportunities, and then connect them to career paths.

And this area is an incredible network, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, the leadership of United States Green Building Council of how to create a new workforce and how young people can see their future as leaders, creating scientists, architects, urban planners, and the importance to build resilience in our neighborhoods.

How do we create smart cities?

How do we can predict and simulate scenarios for water, energy, soil, and, local workforce and local initiatives?

Today we're going to have three sets of 40 kits, and they're all going to design our fire resistant house following the United States Green Building Council guidelines.

So how do you build the house now that we know how susceptible we are to, vulnerable we are to fire.

What are some things that you can do?

What are the materials?

What is the landscape?

How do you build a house that can resist and not only a house, but a neighborhood, a community?

There's also trades, right?

We're talking about Hvac, heat pumps.

We're talking about electrical panel upgrades, solar storage, EV infrastructure.

There's API opportunities.

Technology is now overlapping with the green economy and it's applied, application.

So here is an opportunity where you first learn the trade and then it can be fruitful in your future where you actually own your own business and then are seeing this kind of wealth created not only for your family, but your community.

Historically, on an annual basis, we try to serve 5 to 600 students.

Our hope is when organizations see what we've done here, that they can replicate it, and it can be scaled so we can do more events and reach more students.

So really thinking about how do we reach all of those kids before they enter high school?

We need more events like this because I think a lot of people don't realize, and me being one of them, I, I went to school and I was a business major and didn't realize the environment could actually be a pathway that I could enter.

But you could enter in through, like, say, working for a utility, right?

They have a vast workforce.

You could also work for a state agency.

There's the California Air Resources Board, there is the California Energy Commission, there's the California Public Utilities Commission.

We're here promoting our workforce and education programs.

So we offer programs for students to be able to find career pathways in energy, anything from solar to wind farming.

We have some energy questions to show the students.

We also have some information on how they use their energy and what the most energy is use in their homes, the best way to get answers or get people to save energy?

Do energy in the future have energy?

Careers in the future is to get them young and have them pay attention to the sources of energy in their homes and around their buildings.

Energy jobs can be family sustaining jobs.

You don't have to go to a four year university.

You have opportunities all around you to have very life sustaining jobs.

I came to this event because I wanted to learn more about this team program.

I'm not quite sure what I want to do when I grow up, but hopefully this will help me find different things that I may consider.

I came out to learn more about things that will help me in the future for my career.

I want to be a chemical engineer when I grow up, and I think this will help a lot.

I think the board game room we had was really fun because we got to play like a kind of learn about a game that this guy created.

And how about the climate and what's that and what's good energy model right now?

Who's ready for the energy battle royale?

Hailing from all four corners of the planet, welcome Earth's most powerful clean energy sources with geothermal, nuclear, solar, bio gas, ethanol, hydro and hydrogen.

Who will energize the world?

We just might find out today who's the energy that'll.

Burn.

The Energy Battle Royale is an educational experience that showcases eight renewable energy sources through a superhero's rapping, dancing, battling out to see who the top energy source is.

And so the whole point of every energy battle royale is basically about making sure that kids are engaged.

In a way, I am a former middle school teacher, so my whole goal is to make sure kids care about their learning.

They're having fun because that's how they're going to remember it.

We have the Dancing King because he wants that in their bodies, writing and rapping, and you can feel the beat, but it's all about how do you teach them in a way that they're going to remember and then hopefully use it moving forward.

And that's what the whole the whole battle for that.

I've always believed everyone in the world is an outlet for change.

Growing up in Kansas City, I watched my dad mobilize our community block by block.

That showed me something powerful.

Change doesn't start in boardrooms.

It starts with people.

And for me, music became that outlet.

Music is a universal language.

The mood swings, moods, culture and it can move the world.

I'm honored to serve as Kansas City's sustainability and bass.

My role is simple listen to you.

Listen to the communities doing the work and tell your story.

Shining a light on the sustainability efforts already happening across the city and tell those stories through music and culture.

Because sustainability isn't just policy, it's people.

It's neighborhoods.

It's innovation, it's culture.

And when we bring those worlds together, that's when we power change.

We can like to hear about 40 concerts away from doing 1000.

We would have done a thousand concerts with 100% renewable clean energy.

I just actually left Africa because we just did Malawi and Kenya and Nigeria.

And before that I took over Time Square and and did it for the second time ever, taking over Duffy.

You know, so we've also done the Roxy Theater in LA, the Peacock Arena as well.

So we are on this road to 1000, this battery tour, literally decarbonizing the world.

Right?

Doing these clean energy concerts all over because, you know, the battery tour can be what you see right now, right?

Which is a bunch of batteries like these new use energy batteries, right.

Powering the speakers and sound system.

And we charge it with solar.

Right.

So it's actually solar powered batteries.

It can be this set up here with small batteries.

I used to do ten hour show.

So the battery two hours like an hour concert event.

You can do anything you can do on a generator or anything you can do with the grid on battery.

And I've been doing it well.

I'm all about technology.

I think this one makes the battery grid.

Battery to a really dope is technology, right?

Like it's a it's a concert, you know, with really cool technology and the battery technology, solar technology.

And I mean, where do I want the future to go?

You know, I think I've been living in it.

Right?

I did the first Battery Tour concert in 2012.

Do I want more people to adopt this technology and to use it and to join me in this movement of bringing this to the world?

Heck yes bro, I'm here to get the world plugged in.

You know what I'm saying?

You.

You don't.

You don't you don't you don't you don't.

From San Bernardino, in the Future Green Leaders Summit, we now travel to downtown Los Angeles and the L.A.

Convention Center to meet with folks attending the green billed International Conference and Expo in collaboration with us, GVC, the United States Green Building Council.

People travel from all over the US, all over the world to take part in this event.

This year's conference is themed around better buildings, better futures.

This is a really simple message that I think should resonate when we think about the work that we do, what we're trying to create is that better future.

And together we're going to do that with better buildings.

To.

Only do.

We define a green building at USBc as a Leed certified building.

So here at the Los Angeles Convention Center, we're in a lead certified convention center.

And that means that this project is taking efforts around operations management to really ensure that they're saving things like energy, water, waste, creating a better human experience.

And, you know, even looking at things like transportation and the way that people are getting to this facility.

Sustainability is the future of the planet.

We are not going to have a prosperous society without sustainability.

So it's it's important to the economy.

It's important to the ecosystem.

It's important to the society.

I'm here to see who's doing the most innovative work in the sector.

Because sustainability is a creativity problem.

At the end of the day, we have to innovate our way out of out of our environmental and social challenges and economic ones.

And this is where we're seeing it happen.

I was very intrigued by some of the folks working on affordable housing, such as Boxall and the creative Tiny Homes.

They're actually coming up with solutions that can increase the supply of housing at scale.

We are short about 5 million housing units in this country.

So as the CEO of Oxbow is just saying, if we were to build one house every five minutes, it would take us 50 years to catch up.

If we could build one house every minute, we could do it in a decade.

And cars are built one a minute and they have a lot more parts and houses.

So it's possible it's very crucial for our next generation.

Because as you know, our is not healthy is, climate change is happening everywhere.

And all this stuff.

I don't want to see anything of this in future.

I worry for my future generation.

Yeah, that's my concern.

I want to leave, that, budget place for under the wall.

I went to a school here in Los Angeles that focused around, environmental and sustainability in every aspect.

And so I found that the biggest footprint is around the built environment.

And I recognize that that's what I want to be part of.

I want to help decarbonize that.

And I currently work for the California Energy Commission, where I'm trying to decarbonize, the industries that feed these, products, you know, like steel and cement.

So I'm from India, and, I'm also volunteering at this particular US GBC I'm a green belt scholar at this time, and it's really it's amazing, to interact network with so many like minded professionals, people across, across the entire different fraternity.

It's been a wonderful experience.

We are living in a situation where buildings play a very, very important role.

I believe that, sustainability is something which can be achieved when the environment, if we are focused more about the sustainability and environment, the built environment.

Is that so much like 30 to 40% of the entire emissions, depend upon the industry and the transportation together.

So that plays a very important role.

Green building and sustainability is important to me, as I mentioned, because it has a huge carbon footprint.

And I've recognized that carbon is a huge issue.

It leads to many issues down the road.

And I want to have a family.

I want my family to have family.

So I think the most important thing is to, make sure we take care of this planet, our home, for our family and generations down the road.

Thank you, USBc and all the green build conference and Expo participants.

Now to a story that's creating interest all over the world.

Have you heard the term geo caching?

Geo caching is a live treasure hunt of sorts, using GPS enabled devices or a smartphone app to find hidden containers known as geo caches, with small trinkets to treat this treasure hunting with the help of satellites was invented in 2000.

However, today it's getting players from all over the world, from kids to senior citizens.

And you might not know that the birthplace of this global sport is Oregon.

This next story is all part of our continuing content sharing partnership with public media and PBS stations all throughout the US.

So for this report, we visit our public media partner, OPB, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

We're going to go up the Clackamas River and get some caches.

We've been meaning to go up there for a while.

It's treasure hunting day for the Doan family today.

They'll hunt along the river, climb up into a small cave.

It's probably they're going to be under a rock or in a hole and search the forest floor.

I don't know, can't really see wood here.

Secret stashes invite players into a game that has swept the globe from us.

They call it geo cache.

Let's go look around that one.

Jessica Doan is out with her sons, Bruce and Nash and their father, Kevin, that fell down.

They hope to find ten hidden treasure sites or caches today, says the three giants.

This one sleeps.

They look up hints on the computer before they left home.

Now they get guidance from geosynchronous satellites in outer space for 85.

Now we're getting closer.

He memorizes the numbers and we follow the GPS to the right area.

That looks like it.

It's cheap entertainment.

It's family friendly.

We get to go everywhere and there's marbles in it.

Is there?

The drones are part of a worldwide phenomenon.

The leading geocaching website estimates 2 to 3 million people actively geo cash in this treasure hunt.

Finding the prizes comes with one golden rule if you take an item, you leave an item.

So that's the main thing.

Then you need a trade.

You you don't put in junk for something really nice.

What is this?

The tweezers.

Oh, but there's no referee, no enforcer.

I'll trade the sand dollar for the octopus.

Just the honor system.

That, and whether you find anything you really like, sometimes you don't trade at all.

Yeah, sometimes they're pretty lame.

The trinkets people leave behind may be small, but folks must like them.

The geocaching website reveals hundreds hidden in just one Portland neighborhood across the globe.

There's now more than 800,000 for less than a 10th of a mile from that.

Looks like it right there.

Jim Meisner is known as PDX Jim in Geo cache circles.

He and his friend Kathy Suter lead us to the site of the first ever Geo cache.

The very birthplace of this fort sits near STK to Oregon, and it started right here on May 3rd, 2000.

Geo.

Cashers have set a memorial plaque here, and they stashed a new cache to keep tradition alive.

When I came here the first time, it was almost like a pilgrimage because this is where it started.

It's kind of a neat feeling.

We're looking for the unusual and the unique.

The problem with that is once we find it, we tend to want to share it with everyone.

We met dozens of geo caches at a party celebrating the anniversary of this high tech sport.

We first discovered it just accidentally and found places that we had never, ever would have seen.

Have we not been taking hikes, looking for caches?

Folks go to geo caching.com on their computer, find a cache that looks interesting to them.

Write down or download the coordinates.

Put them in their GPS and go find it.

It's not just a cache, it's an adventure.

I have a cache in my front yard so that I can beat geo caches underneath some branches.

Sometimes the secret treasures aren't just for kids.

Adults leave items that can be tracked as people find them, move them, and hide them over and over again.

This number is it's tracking number so you can see every cache it's been in, who's had it, and how long they kept it.

That coin Jim kept ever so briefly started in Washington, traveled through Oregon, and was last spotted in Oklahoma.

Some coins take very long journeys.

The original owner can watch it every step of the way, because there's another accepted rule if you find a cache, you sign the paper in the cache, plus you log where you picked it up and which cache you moved it to on the public.

Geo caching website.

About five years ago, for example, we placed a travel bug in Perth, Australia, and it just came home a couple months ago, having traveled to Europe and the States and Canada and back to Europe and as they say, almost four and a half, five years later, it returned home.

That looks like the trail.

Jim Meissner is the Energizer bunny of Oregon.

Geo.

Cashers and here it is.

Here it is up here.

Yes.

He's got a knack for finding them big or small.

I found 37 last Saturday.

Gyms found more than 7800 caches so far.

This game also depends on the integrity and good judgment of its players.

See that sign?

We don't trespass.

There's an accepted etiquette in how people hunt.

You don't want to destroy the vegetation because then people will get upset with people geocaching and you won't be allowed to do it.

Okay, we got that one.

Should we go to the next one?

Yes.

It's a game that thrives because the people who play it keep creating new hiding places with more treasures.

All over the world, and then you just put everything back and put it back where you found it, and usually try to hide them better than when you found them.

That way they don't disappear.

Can you see any of it supposed to hide it?

Well, remember?

Okay, now you can't.

For more information about our program, just click on KLCS.ORG and then click Contact Us.

Send us your questions or comments, your story ideas so we can hear from you or you can contact me directly at.

David Nazar news on X David Nazar news on Twitter or DavidNazarNews.com direct message and I'll get back with you and be sure to catch our program here on PBS or on the PBS app.

Thanks for joining us.

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