I’m A Valley Girl—But Not The San Fernando Type
My hometown of Porterville is located in the San Joaquin Valley—the agricultural center of California. Although it’s known for its abundant crops and vibrant sunsets, the San Joaquin Valley is also notorious for its socioeconomic challenges and numerous environmental issues. Luckily, Climate Action Pathways for Schools (CAPS) and student interns like me are working to change that reality.
The Porterville Community
Porterville is a small, close-knit town with a little over 60,000 residents. Yet, we face a disproportionate burden from the effects of climate change. Ranked high on the CalEnviroScreen—a tool that evaluates exposure to pollutants, environmental risks, socioeconomic challenges, and health disparities—Porterville highlights the intersection of environmental and social inequities. As climate change intensifies, these challenges only grow, deepening public health, economic, and educational gaps. Addressing climate change isn’t just about protecting the environment; it’s a necessary step toward tackling systemic inequalities in our country.
Where CAPS Comes In
Launched in 2019, CAPS is a nonprofit organization that partners with school districts to provide paid internships in green career training. In CAPS’ first year, Porterville Unified School District (PUSD) partnered with the organization to launch a pilot program and create a 10-year climate action roadmap to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while saving money for the district. This program aimed to tackle five key areas: building decarbonization, transportation, zero waste, water conservation, and sustainable food systems.
My Role
I first joined CAPS as the social media manager at the end of my freshman year at Harmony Magnet Academy, a Porterville high school. I didn’t know much about sustainability or the environment, but I knew CAPS was a great opportunity to get real-world job experience and apply my love for design. Aside from posting on social media, my main project was to work with the City of Porterville to design a set of informational signs to be installed throughout the revitalized Santa Fe Byway Trail. The more familiar I grew with the CAPS program, the more interested I became in the engineering work being completed by my peers. So when the grant funding my design work ended, I stayed with CAPS, joining the ranks of engineering interns and contributing to the impact I’d been promoting online.
Now, my work encompasses CAPS’ first area of improvement at PUSD—building decarbonization. To accomplish our goal, we work to reduce the energy consumption of every building across the district’s 21 school sites by replacing old, degraded energy infrastructure. This includes performing ASHRAE Energy Audits to assess outdated systems and collaborating with contractors to plan and perform the necessary upgrades.
Initially, learning how to perform energy audits was quite intimidating. I had to learn how to use an HVAC unit’s serial number to tell its age. I had to learn how to figure out the size of windows that were 20 feet in the air without access to a ladder, relying on reference points and some educated guesswork. I even had to be able to recognize the types of lighting fixtures and their mounts. Fortunately, as time went on, these skills became almost second nature to me.
As a Valley Girl, I’ve gotten so much more out of my experience with CAPS than just another internship. It’s transformed the way I see the world around me—from recognizing the types of lights in a room to changing my habits to reduce my energy consumption. It’s also changed my perspective, not just on climate action, but on the potential of what I can do as an engineer in my community and beyond. CAPS has inspired me to pursue a major in environmental engineering and work to innovate our current energy systems to reduce our carbon footprint. Moving forward, I’m excited to take what I’ve learned from CAPS and make an even bigger impact on the environment, climate change, and the systemic inequalities that affect my community and many others.
About Judith Gomez
Judith Gomez is a senior from the Academy of Engineering at Harmony Magnet Academy, a high school in Porterville, California. After starting as the social media manager and then shifting to work on the Building Decarbonization project, she is CAPS’ longest-standing intern and has contributed over 500 hours of work in the past three years.