Leonardo DiCaprio to fund scholarships at elementary school where he studied: “Transmit my experience”.
The UCLA Lab School, the school where the actor was educated, aims to provide innovative educational techniques for its students; this is what DiCaprio said about his support.
Leonardo DiCaprio will fund scholarships and an environmental education program at the UCLA-based elementary school where he himself was a scholarship student, the actor and the university said Tuesday.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Scholarship Fund and the Climate Justice Education Program will begin next school year at the UCLA Lab School elementary school.
Leonardo DiCaprio will fund scholarships and an environmental education program at the UCLA-based elementary school where he himself was a scholarship student, the actor and the university said Tuesday.
The Leonardo DiCaprio Scholarship Fund and the Climate Justice Education Program will begin next school year at the UCLA Lab School elementary school.
DiCaprio’s scholarship fund will support students in need of financial aid, which the actor earned as a child studying in the 1980s, and will also push the school to maintain the diversity it seeks. About 40% of its students need financial aid.
“This scholarship fund will give many children access to UCLA Lab School, just as Leo did,” said Dr. Eric Esrailian, a professor in the UCLA Health Sciences department and a longtime friend of DiCaprio.
In addition, a new stand-alone environmental education program will seek to teach students in kindergarten through sixth grade about the science behind climate change and the policy and leadership needed to address it. The school has sought to use its location, next to a creek amid redwoods on the Los Angeles college campus, to become a hands-on site for environmental education.
DiCaprio, 48, has long been an environmentalist.
Esrailian said the program “will position children, both Lab School and beyond, for a more sustainable and healthy life for themselves and our planet.”
The amount of donations behind the programs was not made public, but school officials said generations of students will be the recipients.
“Expanding access to high-quality education and helping young people recognize the need to protect our planet are fundamental goals for our institution,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement.
DiCaprio, who is an Oscar winner and has starred in such films as Titanic, Once Upon a Time in…. Hollywood and The Reborn, will next appear in Killers of the Flower Moon, from frequent director Martin Scorsese.