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I was inspired by the thoughtfulness and intentionality of the discussion we had, and the commitment of the group to bringing together our collective experience with collaborations, networks, and systems change to identify what we best accomplish together to make a real impact on climate change. We talked about “going slow to go fast”, who we else we need to include, clarifying our goal before jumping in, and doing some system and power mapping before jumping into action. (Form Billy Spitzer)

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Education should be regenerative-- this means more than sustainable, it should give back. With this in mind, we are calling for a shift in education whereby schools are centered at the heart of communities, both literally and figuratively. We want schools to be places where students go to solve problems and improve their communities, and through this meaningful work we think that students will gain both a sense of agency AND the skills and knowledge they need. And we think the school itself, right down to its infrastructure, should serve the community. For instance, if a school needs a new sidewalk, that sidewalk should do more than be somewhere to walk-- it might store carbon, filter rain water, be beautiful, include opportunities for recreation (like hopscotch), make the community more pedestrian-friendly, be designed for folks with mobility or other challenges, include native, edible plantings, etc. Or if the community is facing an issue, like too many algae blooms in the local pond, they might come to the students to try and solve it. The students can learn science, math, communication, civics and so much more through project-based, student-led and intergenerational and interdisciplinary learning that this model would entail.

So what can we do?

Here are two action steps.

#1- Look for and highlight models where something similar (or parts of this) are already succeeding.

Know a school or class who is trying this? Share widely. Start to show teachers and districts and communities what is possible. We cannot institute what we cannot imagine. With that in mind, here is one example in the Boston Globe about a class from Gorham, NH. This is an example of a community that has started looking to the students (and their teacher, Shannon Wydra), to solve community issues. VEEP/NHEEP is also hosting our Summer Institute for educators looking to make this shift in their class or organization. Drew has another opportunity for real estate and construction folks to start to think similarly.

#2- Host community building events and visioning/problem solving sessions in school buildings themselves. Actually physically center your community within the schools. We are hoping to work on a template for folks to adopt or build upon relating to "how to host a community building event at your local school." (From Aubrey Nelson)

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Our Open Spaces group, The Utility of Creativity, largely delved into the various ways in which we all have been bringing artistic practice into our programs, and interrogating strategies to build a world which values creativity as an integral part of being. We discussed the different approaches which we have implemented into our programs, workshops, and flow of work to help others engage with art, and to bolster the genuine utility that art has in the climate change movement. By discussing some of the real uses of art such as creative problem solving; bolstering education strategies using all modes of learning; expression; and creating accessible pathways to understanding complex subjects, we gained a common understanding of why we need art. From there we discussed the barriers around engaging in creative practice, and realized that the current state of art necessitates innovative methods to overcome said barriers. Because there are so many ways to do this, we settled on creating a community of learning, and practice, to continue to tease out the best ways to make living artfully more accessible, and more valuable."

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Our intergenerational Climate Education Policy session included representatives from four Northeast states: Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York. Recent college graduate, Amara Ifeji explained how she helped to pass climate education legislation in Maine, and high schoolers Sonya Witkoskie and Taylor Barry described their ongoing efforts to pass a House Resolution in New Hampshire. Social studies educator, Jim Clifford, told us how 2,000 students showed up to support the passage of Connecticut's climate education mandate in 2022. NWF's Climate & Resilience Education Task Force is working on passing a comprehensive climate education bill in New York that would provide interdisciplinary climate instruction across grades and content areas, teacher training, and the creation of green Career & Technical Education programs for high school students. Our group discussed the importance of power-building, especially with teacher and labor unions, and large conservation organizations who can support lobbying efforts. It was interesting to learn about the different legislative and non-legislative strategies that have been employed in each of our states and what led to positive outcomes in Connecticut and Maine. We all praised New Jersey for boldly leading the way. One thing was certain: as the primary stakeholders in the education system, youth are playing a critical role in advocacy for the climate education they need and deserve. Adults need to support them at every turn and we must all collaborate for collective impact in the Northeast. Our group promised to stay in touch and support one another as we forge ahead to create education systems that reflect the urgency of this moment. (From Emily Fano)

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Hello everyone,

Here are the notes from our "Accessibility & Relevance for Underserved Audiences" Open Space Discussion.

For the Open Space, I proposed a session based around a challenge myself, and other informal educators, face when working with underserved communities - specifically, rural communities with lower socio-economic status. During my first year as an informal educator, I've found it difficult to connect with students from these communities about issues such as climate change...or really anything related to STEM. I believe this is mostly due to these students having more domestic and substantial community trauma that challenge them daily.

During the Open Space, I received some excellent advice and resources for handling topics such as climate change in underserved communities. Please see our notes for more details!

Thank you again to everyone who joined our session! I appreciated it IMMENSELY!

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Hello Everyone,

Below are the notes from our Open Space session about Connecting Youth Initiatives at the NE Climate Collaborative Summit. We had a great group of representatives mostly from high schools in New Hampshire. I believe Walker offered to help coordinate a Zoom call this summer in June or July where we can flesh out a plan for the next school year. Excited to see where this idea goes and help support the creation of this regional coalition!

Open Space Session: Connecting Youth Initiatives Notes

Who is in the room:

Cassidy + Anna - cobrown Northwood Academy in Northwood, NH

Autumn + Max- Pinkerton Academy in NH

Lucy- freshman Hopkinton High School

Olivia- work in Maine & started Maine Environmental Change Network (15-30)

Hannah- The Wild Center

Initial Thoughts:

How to move from action role to mentoring role, becoming the model for others

The younger you can get someone invested, the better

What is the action/ what do we want to do?

try to understand what is going on in the youth climate movement in Maine- research project, youth advisory team from youth led action groups in the state

there is very little understanding/ mapping of the youth climate movement in our region

there are lots of big things happening but we are not very networked across the region

we need to tell the story of our movement- could we create a board to try and get all these different initiatives and clubs, how they achieved success, seek advice?

NHEEP + VTEEP should more officially join their efforts

How do we connect/ communicate with each other?

mapping- who are the players: Hopkinton Environmental Club (10-15 members), NH Energy Education Project (NHEEP) + Vermont Energy Education Project (VEEP), Maine Environmental Changemakers Network, Maine Youth for Climate Justice, 350 NH, Oyster River, High School Environmental Clubs across NY, ME, NH & VT, ClimaTeens at The Wild Center

add youth coalition to the NE Climate Change Collaborative—> it can be called the Northeast Youth Climate Coalition or Society; green teams/ environmental clubs can be chapters or affiliates of the coalition

regular meet ups for green teams, trying to get more schools involved

shared google folder- documents sorted by months

need a few volunteers to coordinate the regular highlights

in person regional conversation to decide what this group might be

meeting again sometime in June/ July on Zoom

need funding to bring youth, to pay youth for an advisory board for their time- can NE Climate Education Collaborative help with this?

Action steps:

get connected via e-mail

regular meet ups: every 2ish months OR regular newsletter- project bright spots each month, sharing what each club has been up to

create a youth-centered part of the NE Climate Change Education Summit next year, meet up at Adirondack Youth Climate Summit, or other regional event

In Action,

Hannah

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Collective Impact Open Space

Who (Bold names – part of small working group)

Megan Camp (Shelburne Farms)

Jen Kretser (Wild Center)

Ina Smith Johnson (Johnson Foundation)

Natalee Wrege (Paul Smith Vic)

Phoebe Hartvigsen (Squam Lakes Nature Center)

John (Earth to Sky Program – NASA Goddard)

Ali Jackson (Sciencenter, National Informal STEM Network)

Billy Spitzer (Hitchcock Center for ____ & Several National Collaboratives & Training programs)

Sophia (Vermont / NH Energy Program)

Leigh Ann Reynolds (NHEE)

Jen Serilo (Shelburne farms)

Josh Teeter (New York state parks)

Liz Soper

Joan Haley

Why Interested in this group

- Systems Thinking

- Thrive off Collaboration à efficiency

- How we can make work more actionable

- Power of local adaptation and customization and leveraging larger networks

- Being a part of national networks, lessons learned

- Successful networks are intentional

- Everyone doing separate advertising to similar school audiences … better way

- EE orgs/data collectors à national database in the works (leigh ann) current survey out, you can overlay layers (environmental justice etc). ME has its own version

- Can we get national notice, doing 1 action at same time across 5 states

- Food, climate, sustainability

- Power of collective

- Running out of time – need to go/do big

- Collaboration vs competition

Action Steps

- Who isn’t here who is doing work in this arena

o Major science museums (follow up à how might this impact smaller institutions being at the table? How might that shift the conversation?)

o Politicians

- Broad enough to up our impact skills but can be locally customizable vs lets all do the same curriculum (underlaying skills)

o IE: Set of professional skills/educational skills etc (how do we talk about climate change)

- Need to be able to measure impact (specific enough to do so)

- How do we organize as a group?

o Helpful to have paid staff to facilitate & a governance structure (leadership) /membership structure (commitment)

Questions

- Are we thinking of educating public or children?

o Constellations of different community groups connected to one another (nested systems) All doing their part. Everyone feels too broad a scope, but elementary for example is too narrow.

§ mitigation/adaptation work

§ education

§ Voting

§ Healthcare

§ Youth groups

§ We are an audience too (professionals)

- How are we motivating different groups of people

- What are the levers we can pull? What opportunities does that provide? What can we do together that we can’t do apart?

-

- What are the skills that we can benefit from that we can learn during these in person days together.

o Climate educator institute/set of programs

- Power Mapping (look at asset mapping) – who is missing, where is the power,

o Politicians

o Federal Organizations

- Resource Mapping – funding to support all this work

- Should we part of another/bigger collective action project that already exists?

o what other groups are doing similar things that we can merge.

o John – have a federally funded network, with a regional model (20 years running)

o Difference between network and collective impact

- Organization or Individuals?

o Underlaying Principle Suggestion: organizational change and when we come together thinking of repping their organization as part of the collaborative thinking about the good of the group not their organization

What are some of the things you’ve seen that worked

- Having real clarity around the change you want to make/goal

o Systems map is one way to do that– what are the levers (given constraints of time and resources – arrange resources around the change we want to make)

o Go slow to go Fast – Clarity first

- Shared Leadership and Commitment

o shared backbone, shifts culture of the group

o Not just a group of non-profits but a partnership with funders too at the table from the very beginning (away from scarcity mindset to abundance)

What Steps is this Group Committed to Taking

First Steps

- Small group coming together to get clear on the goal

o Achievable & Measurable

o Who is Funder and what are their needs/objectives?

- Connect with Other Groups

o Jen Reports back to NOAA about this conversation (bring back learning)

§ Bringing in Megan & Joan

o Billy Spitzer - meeting with Piscies Foundation & NOAA next week to talk to another group doing similar work.

- Google Doc to list out cross pollination opportunities to other networks (Ali Jackson will create)

Secondary Steps

- System Mapping (Hire someone to do a survey)

o What are we mapping, what is the goal?

o Ina – Midwest 7 state energy group example: How do we get rid of coal fired power plants in these states. Governors & Orgs got on board, lever was folks in power and having a clear specific goal.

- Network Analysis to map connections

- Bringing Funders into Conversation