CEDAR Prepares Eastern Kentucky Student-Leaders for a Future Beyond Coal
I remember the first time I heard about mountaintop removal. Huddled in a crowded assembly hall with my peers for an after-school National Honors Society meeting, I listened as presenters whose names I’ve long forgotten made a compelling case for the ecological consequences of mountaintop drilling and the coal mining industry writ large. The side-by-side pictures that they projected onto the screen behind them told a pretty jarring tale: one photo displayed an Appalachian mountain with old growth at its apex, and the other, taken just months after the first, showed a leveled, gray, fully industrialized plateau. There was an eerie gravity in the room as the presentation closed.
For the rest of my time in school, I would learn about the ecological consequences of coal mining. For context, this presentation took place in the late 2000s, when more of my friends than not adorned their cars with bumper stickers that read “Topless Mountains Are Obscene.” Growing up in Louisville, I was always confused why coal, with all of its physical and environmental dangers, was so fiercely defended in the eastern part of the state I thought I knew so well. I clearly had a lot more to learn about the economic and cultural history outside of my bubble, but for so long, the state’s continued reliance on the industry made little sense to me.
When I was first asked to write a story on the efforts of Kentucky-based Community Economic Development And Revitalization (CEDAR), I had some apprehensions. I looked at their readily accessible information on a now defunct site with the ominous date range 1993-2020. As I read through the organization’s outdated materials, I felt the same uneasiness that overcame me during that mountaintop removal assembly. Founded in 1993, the organization’s original goal “to facilitate the increase of knowledge and understanding of the many benefits the Coal Industry provides in our daily lives,” according to their information.
Through this lens, the organization’s programming has historically placed the coal mining industry on a pedestal because of the ways that communities in Eastern Kentucky have relied on it. And this was what was originally lost on me and what I wasn’t able to understand. As someone who came from a community far away from Appalachia, it was easy for me to gloss over the effects – both positive and negative – on real people.
It’s no secret at this point that coal’s decline has been felt sharply. According to a 2020 study by the Appalachian Regional Commission, coal production in the region dropped off by more than 65% since 2005. With staggeringly low coal production rates and fewer and fewer jobs in the industry, the region has looked to other areas to revitalize its economy.
And as the region’s dependence on the industry began to wane because of the economic devastation left in that decline’s wake, CEDAR felt the overwhelming need to make a pivot too. Because so much of its programming had to do with how coal as an industry needed to be supported, its gradual but now overpowering absence necessitated a shift in focus and in practice. So with a pretty substantial name change and a totally new concentration, CEDAR would begin to support students and educators in ways that would impact their communities directly.
What CEDAR’s Pivot Means for Teachers and Students
As John Justice, the president and executive director of CEDAR, stated at AcclerateKY’s Connect. Inform. Inspire. Conference said, “We’ve changed the topic from coal to the future of work.”
CEDAR has always offered support to students and teachers in the region, but the new scope of their efforts, which involves a number of competition-based academic programs, is structured to promote scholastic excellence as it relates to the future of entrepreneurship and labor.
Traci Tackett was a teacher who was supported by initiatives founded by CEDAR. From her experience, she understands how important this kind of supplemental instruction can be to the academic development of students across diverse backgrounds. In other words, because she intervened in the classroom as an educator with a CEDAR focus, she was able to witness first-hand how students benefited from a continuous and direct intervention that proved complementary to Kentucky’s state academic standards.
Since CEDAR realigned itself to meet the educational and economic needs of the region as it moves beyond the coal mining industry, it has worked with SOAR to build new academic programming. This new path is based on the “Seven Pillars of the SOAR Blueprint”:
Broadband access and connectivity
Building a modern workforce in the 21st century
The intersection of entrepreneurship and digital economies
Fostering healthy communities
Developing key industries
Creating and cultivating regionally based food systems
Driving an infrastructure that supports tourism
The programming that CEDAR offers is now split into three distinct sections: the Teacher Study Unit Program (K-12), the Student Fair Program (K-12), and the Entrepreneurial Coal Lands Redevelopment Program (ECLRP). The Teacher Study Unit focuses on how educators can prepare their students to “be a part of shaping the Future of Work in Appalachia, and how that could help provide more sustainability for their community and our region as a whole,” according to their materials. This program prompts educators to build their own lesson plans that address at least one of the seven Pillars outlined by SOAR’s Blueprint. Educators across Eastern Kentucky are encouraged to apply, and those who are selected are awarded additional grant money to help guide their instructional planning.
Courtesy CEDAR
Separately, the Student Fair Program is a competition for students to work individually or as a team to create a project in response to at least one of SOAR’s Seven Pillars. K-12 students must then create a project through a specific discipline. These subjects include Art, English, Math, Music, Science, Social Studies, Tech-Multimedia. In addition to the physical project materials that students must prepare to enter into the regional fair, entrants must also design and submit a digital presentation. For winners in the competition, students are able to earn cash prizes.
From Success in the Classroom to Regional Revitalization
To mark the shift in the organization’s focus, Justice told the Appalachian News-Express in 2020 that “he still wants students, particularly with the ECLRP, to learn about the history of the coal industry in Appalachia as they create their projects.”
Designed for high school students exclusively, this project-based and team-focused program encourages creativity, entrepreneurship, and [blank]. “Students identify a former mine site – this could be a surface mine, a deep mine, or even a coal processing plant,” Tackett said. “They imagine a business idea and work as a team to see how that land can benefit their business and how their business can therefore benefit their community by giving back.” This overarching concentration on community goes a step further, where students are able to offer “a site profile where they learn the history of that site and the benefits they provided their community through the years.” Through this approach, students can determine the benefits of the land on business and, more importantly, the benefits of the business on the community. They also develop and submit a business plan. Finally, students create their last component of the project-based competition: a fully designed prototype. This visual aid adds invaluable context to the pitch they ultimately deliver.
Coal isn’t coming back, but students have an opportunity with this kind of project to understand its cultural and economic significance while they plan to repurpose the land that it once dominated. And in this way, the region’s next generation of leaders have the chance to chart a new path on their own terms, guided by educators who have a direct stake in their success.
“Students are really taught about economic development.”
This blog post is part of an ongoing series exploring the economic resilience and future of Kentucky’s workforce. To subscribe to updates, sign up for our newsletter.
