This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato coming to you from the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco.

Here in the Bay Area, there are foggy groves of towering redwoods, long stretches of beach,

with sand dollars half buried in the sand and picturesque houses stacked atop the hills.

But there's another side to this famously scenic part of the country,

the part you don't see on the postcards, the chemical plants, the oil refineries,

the heavy industry, the airports, and the shipping yards.

And even though we all enjoy the benefits of industrialized society, it's the communities and the shipping yards. And even though we all enjoy the benefits of an industrialized society,

it's the communities living near those industrial landmarks

that are the hardest hit by industrial byproducts,

like air pollution and chemical contamination.

My next guest says her experience growing up in one of these communities

here in the Bay Area

turned her into an environmental justice activist, and she's taking those lessons to the classroom too.

Laura Diaz is a science teacher at the Bay School here in San Francisco.

She's also a former microbiologist for the California Department of Public Health and one of Science Friday's educator collaborators.

Welcome to Science Friday.

Thank you.

Laura, explain the idea of environmental justice. What is that?

Yeah, so I think all of us here in this theater benefit from products that we consume from polluting industries.

However, not all of us here in this theater equally bear the burden of the pollution that results from those polluting industries. And what we see is communities of color,

low-income communities, and first-generation families

are disproportionately burdened with those pollution.

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