“Literally at the summit, they went outside and called their mayor,” she says. “For example, we invited the New York Climate Smart Communities office, and some of the students were like, ‘Hey my community could do that!’ “It’s so interesting to see where the passions of the young people lead,” says Kretser. Through the years she’s seen projects focus on everything from community composting, school gardens, and no-mow zones to solar charging stations, political advocacy, and even a carbon-neutral prom, complete with dress exchanges to decrease the carbon footprint of garment transportation. The center’s focus on flexible, self-direction has led to some innovative ideas and impacts, according to Kretser. “The idea is to help youth develop agency,” she says, “to take what they’ve learned and come up with their own plan – then put it into practice.” Actionable and self-built – not prescribed – solutions All are centered on core values of youth initiative, partnership between generations, and local, self-guided planning and action. Today, a youth advisory board helps support the summits and other Wild Center climate programs. Since then, the student-driven program has expanded to comprise 85 Youth Climate Summits in 43 communities around the world. At the conference, students from 30 school districts learned about climate science and climate impacts, then created their own local climate action plans to bring back to their schools and communities. Working proactively with youth volunteers, she set about organizing the first Adirondack Youth Climate Summit, which took place in 2009 and attracted some 250 high school students from across the state. ‘Everyone at the climate conference was “really old” … what about young people?’ So I was like, ‘yes – but I’m going to need your help.'” “I thought, oh my gosh, yes, of course you don’t feel like you have a voice, if you don’t feel you have a place to talk about this. “That was a pivotal point for me,” she says. Afterward, she recalls how an attendee emailed her to say “‘Hey, that was awesome, but everyone at that conference was really old, and we need something for young people.'” In 2008, she helped the center organize a climate conference, which, like many of its kind, featured mostly adults. Jen Kretser is the director of Climate Initiatives at The Wild Center, a science museum in northern New York State. He was not alone in thinking that youth should be more directly involved in climate leadership. “It was interesting that there weren’t more young people there, because this is a problem that’s probably going to affect my generation more than others.”

“Out of 1,000 people, only about 20 were under the age of 18,” says Fagerheim. But something was missing, or rather, a kind of someone. There, he learned about the science and about what adults were doing about it.

As a high school freshman in 2016, Andrew Fagerheim was so serious about climate action that he traveled from rural New York to Colorado to attend a prominent climate leadership conference.

Chelsea lafountain wild center