(ominous music) - West 40 is back open west of Steamboat Springs after flooding forced crews to shut it down yesterday.

And it comes following a string of warm days in an area that has seen records.

(ominous music) - Yeah, Matt, take a look.

You can see just how close that water got to these homes in the town of Hayden, coming right up to those backyards.

Tonight, they believe those waters are receding, but folks here are worried this is just the start.

- [Reporter] On the front range, the spring runoff is just beginning.

But outside of Steamboat Springs, historic snowfall is already producing dangerous results.

- [Student 1] How was the snowboarding this season?

- [Student 2] It was good.

- [Student 1] Yeah?

Did you have good season?

- [Student 2] I started at Lake, so I- (students talking indistinctly) - [Jay] All right, you go to test.

Get the tests going.

Hurry up.

How are you Matt?

- All right.

- Have a good day.

- You too.

- [Jay] Good morning.

- [Interviewer 1] Oh, they're stating that the warm weather, they don't expect for it to improve.

- [Interviewer 2] I saw the road was closed from Steamboat.

- I heard that too.

I don't know.

- [Interviewer 1] Oh, it's on that end too.

- Yes.

- [Interviewer 2] It's the whole way.

- I heard, this is Jay.

When environmental changes happen, whether it's a reduction in snowpack or whether it's flooding, it directly impacts our economy and the way we live our lives.

Floods are unusual.

They're not necessarily regular occurrences.

But actually, this year we've had a huge amount of snowfall, which is great.

But it came 50 degrees, 60 degree weather and that snow melted and all at one time.

- Just two weeks ago we had snow piled up so high you couldn't even see parts of the parking lot literally in the last two weeks.

All of this snowfall is heading down the Yampa towards Hayden, Moffitt, and down that way.

(dramatic music) - [Brian] These extreme temperature shifts can be catastrophic.

Too much water damages the vegetation, soil, and future crops.

Contamination and harmful bacteria often result and livestock need to be protected.

Transportation is halted and the economic impact can be enormous.

- We'll see what happens over the next couple days.

Actually, it's supposed to snow some more and rain some more tonight so it could even actually get worse.

(dramatic music) - [Brian] Around the globe, communities like the Yampa Valley are under enormous pressure from the effects of climate change.

Rising temperatures, violent weather, and drought are just few of the challenges facing rural and urban populations.

As climate change accelerates, it brings irreversible threats to our future.

2023 was the hottest year on record.

And temperatures in Colorado are predicted to warm another 2.5% by 2025, which will have significant impacts on the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.

The state experiences fluctuating drought combined with an average of over 237,000 acres burning annually in forest fires.

Communities across Colorado and across the planet urgently need to come together and adapt to these changing conditions.

- [Barbara] We are experiencing climate change.

It's not temporary.

- I define the climate crisis as humans using more than they are giving back.

(slow music) - It is real and it is affecting us in many ways.

We've had terrible drought in southwest Colorado.

And then this year, we had a lot of rain and snow.

And everybody thinks, oh, the drought's over.

And it's, you know, it's not.

- We do face a number of environmental challenges in Colorado.

Most of them have a direct tie-in to climate change.

This is gonna continue to get worse before it gets better.

- The climate crisis is something we all need to be looking at.

And if we can just take a more micro, small community look at this, I believe that's how we're actually gonna make a real difference and solve and change things and not be afraid to have this conversation.

- A new model says to children and youth, what are you here to learn?

What do you see?

What does science tell you?

What are the impacts?

And they're very visible.

- [Brian] Students see the problem.

And they wanna be a part of the solution.

Interviews with more than 10,000 children in various countries between 2016 and 2021 found that they were burdened with intense forms of climate and eco anxiety.

More than 45% of those children said that their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily lives.

Their distress was compounded by feelings of betrayal at the lack of response by people in positions of power.

We need to build a future where the voices of young people are respected and feeling they can make a difference is vital.

- [Student 3] Do it for the- - [Student 4] For the world.

- [Student 3] All right, squeeze in.

- Everybody.

(laughs) - No offense to the older generations, but I feel like my generation specifically is really trying hard to do it since it's gonna be on our hands or our kids' hands and it's just important that we do that because we don't want our Earth to die.

- We're on a threshold of there's no going back and fixing this.

So it's really urgent for this entire generation to start being more sustainable and really working on environment.

So you have to bring a lot of people together to collaborate to fix this issue.

- We can't push it on to the young people and make it their responsibility to save us.

What we need to do is actually show them that we care about their future by advancing solutions from where we sit and empowering them with the knowledge and skills that they need to help lead and advance the sustainable society ahead.

- [Jenni] We know that eco anxiety and this fear that many of them have about their future and the future of the planet is a real mental health crisis.

The best way to help them address that is to give them a sense of agency and for them to find their own voice.

- Often, rural students feel isolated or far from opportunity.

Climate change is impacting their community and they can help solve it.

- In rural communities, the school districts can be very small.

How can we actually create a path so that things that haven't been able to be done before can be done?

- [Brian] So how do we encourage various stakeholders in the same community to work together?

How do we empower students and ensure resilience in the face of current and future threats?

(slow music) (protestors shouting) - We're striking because we have done our homework and they have not.

(protestors cheering) - I'm not sure if it was 2018, but around that time, Greta Thunberg had this huge global movement calling young people to strike.

And they had one of these strikes out of Denver.

And I had heard that these girls, that they were down in Denver striking for the climate, like skipping school essentially to save our planet.

- In 2018, Amara and I were going to a cross country race.

Our mom heard that Greta Thunberg was going to be speaking so she brought us there.

I remember we were on the stadium she was speaking at in our cross country uniforms, just like kind of like, are we gonna make it to the race in time?

It was really cool to be able to see her 'cause she's kind of an inspiration to me.

- [Nicci] And that's when I first met them when they were seventh or eighth graders.

- We're passionate about the environment.

We all kind of have the same values and beliefs.

- I always kind of care about the environment.

I think I would consider myself an environmentalist and climate activist.

I don't know if I really need a label for that.

I think it's just that like I care about my future and I want everyone else to have a nice future on the planet.

So I don't know.

I think everyone should kind of be an environmentalist.

(piano music) - Tal is kind of like the one who like, I don't know, the outgoing one who like does stuff and talks to a lot more people than me and Indy do.

- We were waiting because you guys were in the- - Yeah, we did more.

We were in the trunk.

- We all are.

- Amara is, she's determined and also very analytical where Indy is, you know, leans towards creativity.

Indy is super impassionate and super empathetic.

- Leadville is about two hours west of Denver.

And it's a really, really small town.

Everyone knows each other.

- Leadville was part of the original Colorado Gold Rush in 1859 when Abe Lee found gold in California Gulch.

The Meibum became the main source of Leadville mining at the Climax Mine right over here, off Highway 91.

And that was the main source of revenue for Leadville until the early 80s when it closed, sending Leadville into complete economic recession.

It became the highest unemployed county in the country overnight.

People left.

Housing prices plummeted.

Businesses closed.

And Leadville really, really struggled for a long time.

It's always been popular with hunters and people who like lakes and people who like to hike and ski and fish.

And so that's sort of helped Leadville sustain itself.

The mine reopened in the early 2000s.

And now, Leadville is a mix of all kinds of different people.

- [Amara] Oh, there's too many.

- I think everyone at our school does care about the environment to a degree because obviously it affects their future and it affects everyone around them.

But I don't know how many are willing to really do something about it or do something about it while they are at school.

(slow music) - Our school tends to be a lot of working class families who work very hard and who have limited time to engage in extracurricular activities.

I think a lot of our students do sports, while some our students rush home after school to take care of siblings to help their families.

A lot of our students work.

And so to have students involved in a club is challenging.

Also, I think the politics around climate change have become pretty challenging.

In a community like Leadville that tends to be blue collar, the word climate can be a word that maybe turns some people off to environmental issues.

How do we talk about climate science in a way that's inclusive and embracing different political perspectives and keeping the political part of the conversation separate from the science part of the conversation around what we can do?

(upbeat music) - The Yampa Valley I think is one of the most beautiful parts of Colorado.

It is a vast valley that has mountains on both sides, a beautiful river running through it, vast open spaces.

It's called the Yampa Valley because of the Yampa River.

It runs through every town and is important to every community.

People rely on it for the economy.

Without a strong healthy Yampa River, the agriculture industry is under threat.

- Our community is very close to the environment.

Our industry, our economy, the way we live our lives embraces our environment and truly connected at a very deep level and always has been.

- [Dylan] It's a very diverse region, both politically, economically, geographically.

- Even within South Route, there are very different cultures.

When you take the length of the Yampa River and you really expand that, so Steamboat, once upon a time, it was an ag town.

But their bread and butter is recreation.

They're a ski town now.

(slow music) - Steamboat, they're generally viewed as being a more left wing, more progressive, more liberal community, whereas Craig and Hayden and Soroco are still pretty dominant in the coal industry and agriculture.

And so there tends to be the conception that they are a much more conservative political base.

- Our schools are natural rivals, just like any schools across America.

You know Moffitt County Bulldogs, yes, they want to beat Steamboat Sailors.

And yes, Steamboat Sailors, they wanna, you know, go into Hayden and compete.

(slow music) - Talking about the politics of rural Colorado, you wanna talk about sustainability and environmental awareness and taking care of the land and being good stewards of the land.

There's no one better than the people that do it daily.

The snow that is melting here today is ending up in Hayden.

We understand that very well.

We're very conscious of that.

We've had drought for more than seven years.

And we're also very hesitant to allow people to come in from the outside.

I'm very sensitive to this.

I grew up in western Colorado.

I'm very rural.

But I did not grow up in this community.

And so for me to come into this community and start telling people how to do and what to do, I'm wise enough to know not to do it.

But people who don't come in and start telling us what to do, we just shut down.

(train horn blaring) (slow music) - The ability to bring people together around the environmental topics, it is a term that will come to play into sometimes political mindsets.

And really, the whole notion at the beginning was to come together in a way that was about the students and it was about learning.

It was about the land.

Well, the Four Corners region is how we would describe it.

Our proximity in the Four Corners being so close to New Mexico and Utah in particular.

That's an important part of our mindset, those borders.

We think about humanity and the peoples of the Four Corners because our history in the southwest is so tied to that and it's just been told from dominant perspectives for so long that we really want the students to understand where they are.

Having pride in your state, but also understanding where you sit regionally really is an important focus of understanding where we are.

- Fort Lewis really deeply believes in community engagement, serving 40% of students who are Native American, who have been disproportionately impacted by climate change.

We're in the middle of lots of conversations around how to do workforce, how to do science, how to do community engagement with our students for the benefits of their community.

(slow music) - How do we provide the same amount of resources and access to our students as students in metro areas receive?

Acting locally and understanding your region helps support these initiatives that do have an impact on a state, national, and global level, but really is a different approach from the top down and going from the bottom up.

(upbeat music) - [Brian] A different approach, a new model to tackling the climate crisis is being facilitated by a Colorado nonprofit with a focus on rural communities.

Their model brings local stakeholders together to co-create pathways for students.

(upbeat music) - The first thing we do is sort of think regionally and think about how do we bring multiple school districts together?

That's not enough though.

We need higher education also at the table.

So the other part of the model is making sure they are there, that they can do course offerings for students in these high schools that meet quality academic standards.

- [Brian] A pathway is a series of courses that a student can take throughout their educational career that builds on each other so that when they exit that pathway, they have those skills and competencies to enter the workforce and go to college.

And eventually, kids can have credentials or diplomas that recognize what they do know and what their skills are so that industry partners can say, "Yes, that kid has that skillset.

Let's get them engaged into the work at an earlier age."

- We can't move forward without collaboration on climate change issues.

And so starting with community, starting with a recognition that everybody has a valid voice and seat at the table, hearing people's perspectives, and meeting people where they are is ultimately what's going to help us move towards a more sustainable society ahead.

- A Climatarium Hub is a community that we come into.

And we bring together K-12, higher ed, and industry partners to really identify what it is about climate change that they want to address in their community.

It's fully community driven.

They make the decisions.

- We set the table.

We bring them together.

And then we work in that convening role.

We're very behind the scenes.

They will then start having conversations.

And often, they're very values-driven conversations like their experience of growing up on a ranch, for example, in Yampa Valley, or why someone moved to Steamboat Springs because of the quality of life and what they could do outdoors.

- [Mary] So Climatorium is a made up word.

It doesn't exist.

You can look in the dictionary.

It is not there.

- [Teacher 1] Watch where you step.

- [Mary] And it's really a placeholder.

And it's a concept that people seem to gravitate towards.

It's like a planetarium, but has the word climate in it.

So it immediately suggests learning.

It suggests something around climate.

It is the model of creating academic opportunities, these pathways, experiential learning in rural communities, following their lead.

And so that's what Climatorium is.

All of our communities wanna rename it right away.

Like this is not their name.

And that's part of our process.

And we believe so strongly that for that ownership, it should be and reflect the values of that community.

It does not have to have the word climate in it.

And that's why you see the Yampa Valley partnership for Student Stewardship and Sustainability or the Southwest Collaborative.

So they each come up with their own names and we love that.

(upbeat music) - It is really easy for us to think that climate change education is a science field.

But really, there's many climate change activists that are going to become politicians or writers or go into marketing, you name it, any field.

And it's really important that when we're building out these hubs and these pathways, we're not just thinking that it should be a science-based pathway.

(upbeat music) - [Mary] Our biggest hope is that we can build on what already exists and we're just creating this interconnected framework for students to have a different experience.

The resources that already exist in these communities are extraordinary.

And we know we can't come in with a better idea or a better initiative or a better organization.

We're just lifting it up and changing and helping these communities have a different conversation than they've had before.

(upbeat music) - Our rural region is really tired of organizations that get a wild hair.

And then they come down and they say, "We're gonna give you money and this is how we're gonna fix things."

Rural folks are like, "Whoa.

One, I didn't know I needed fixing.

And two, we've actually been doing a lot of this work for like 20 plus years before you guys noticed."

The reason why Lyra is successful is because they don't go with that approach.

They understand that.

They come in as partners into a region and really sit at the table again with curiosity to learn about what it has, is already happening in the community and then how can they elevate that to the next level.

- Climatorium really took roots in southwest Colorado because the community here saw a need.

They saw a need for rural collaboration, not just through lens of environmental education, but really just real collaboration for the heart of what collaboration does.

- Lyra took all the superintendents on a trip to see like what could be possible around collaboration.

- In 2018, Lyra came in and started working with superintendents in southwest Colorado.

And the reason they wanted to come together is because they wanted to figure out a way to share resources, teachers, students to create more offerings.

- Cool.

- These small rural districts may have 25 students.

And it's very hard to create new things for them because you just can't support it with such small student populations.

- [Jessica] The first Climatorium Hub was in southwest Colorado.

Really came out of space of five school districts in that region trying to figure out how they could better collaborate and provide opportunities regionally for students.

And from there, that collaborative has actually expanded into nine school districts now.

- [Mary] Fort Lewis College was part of it, Pueblo Community College.

And in the course of that, it really became clear that we needed to do something around climate and something around environmental education.

And so that was one of the pathways.

First step of that was the Environment Climate Institute, ECI.

And ECI was launched by Lyra in partnership with Fort Lewis College to serve kids in that region and to really create this experiential learning.

- The Environmental Climate Institute, ECI for short, started four years ago in 2020, summer of 2020, at Fort Lewis College.

There was 15 students.

It was even before my time.

And it was in the peak of COVID.

- I met Tal and Indigo and Amara.

These three just incredible eighth graders.

So first of all, I should say that this was meant for high school students, the ECI summer camp.

And it was in southwest Colorado.

And I had these three young women who were in eighth grade and who were determined to drive from Leadville to Durango for the first ECI Summer Institute.

(upbeat music) - In the summer of 2020, we went to ESCI.

And then we kind of started like working together.

- [Nicci] The driving factor of what was leading them to participate in our work was they wanted to make a really positive change and a lasting impact in their small hometown community of Leadville.

(upbeat music) - Well, before, I always kind of cared about the environment.

I learned more about what it was and what I was protecting at that camp.

And since we kind of, Tal, Amara, and I came up with an idea at the camp.

- They wanted to host an Earth Day event that would both act as a recruiting mechanism for their club but also just expose their fellow students and their peers to the world of climate activism and give them some access to some hands-on learning.

- Sobeck, you can go fishing.

You can go through the minefield station.

Get a grand prize.

You can go to sort the plastic.

Get a grand prize.

You can go visit Gartner.

You can go visit the Forest Service.

And you can download an app called Ecosia.

So everybody, for the next hour, you can go in the station.

(students talking indistinctly) Kashia, bring your bingo sheet.

- They've been working for the past year to really figure out how they can reach their peers.

And I think they've come across a lot of challenges with it.

- We've had lots of recruitment for a club.

You know, free pizza if you come to our meeting.

And we don't really get a response from anybody.

Haven't had success with anybody wanting to join.

Club right now is just us three.

And our next thing was this hut trip to get people recruited to our club and to get people support that they need to follow their passion.

- The idea came up after winter break.

- Yeah.

- [Indigo] Packing list?

- Just shove everything in your backpack.

That's what I do for my drawers.

Then next day, microvertebrate, Brett.

- [Amara] Microvertebrates.

- Yeah, we can do it when we hike up.

Honestly, that's a picture of the list.

We're trying to make it not too lessony and more fun.

But we're hoping everyone can still learn things.

Things like this can be either really fun or they're just miserable.

(slow music) - Craig was originally an agricultural community, and in the 70s, transitioned into a coal community.

All of our communities are kind of looking for that opportunity to find an economy base that's going to fill the void when coal transitions.

- How do we solve problems in the future with the tools that we have now.

Something like 60% to 80% of the jobs that kids will have in the next 20 years have not yet been created.

And so how does public education prepare kids to take those jobs when we don't even know what they are?

How do we teach what we don't know?

(slow music) - The average farmer and rancher in Colorado is over 60 years old right now.

And that is not a sustainable future.

We need more young people to see that as a viable career path.

- A lot of generational agriculture operations are dying out.

Not a lot of people are coming back.

A lot of ranches are being sold off and developed.

- Without ag, you would not be here.

Ag is food, fuel.

It's pretty much the basics of every business and industry in America.

Good work.

- Teachers and students have been talking about how each school has unique programming that we would like to be able to have all of our students, regardless of which school that you're in, to be able to participate, engage in, and have those opportunities.

We've been talking about that concept for years.

Lyra being a key organization with this brought those school leaders together and said, "How can we connect these different educational pathways, whether it be the Soroco ag program, whether it's the Steamboat's applied engineering program, or it's the Hayden ag or welding program, or the business pathways in Moffitt.

How can we get each other together and have our students participate in those programs?"

(slow music) - Whether it be distance in between or schedules, there are barriers.

There are days that we have things that we do not agree on.

There are days that we have obstacles.

(upbeat music) - [Student 5] I have water under it.

Like no.

- [Student 6] It's gonna crawl up my arm.

- My mom is projecting her anxiety on me though.

She kept asking me if I was nervous.

And I was like no.

- So 1,600.

(students talking indistinctly) (upbeat music) - [Student 5] Oh, what a shame.

(upbeat music) (students talking indistinctly) - [Student 6] Yeah, we're doing it both nights.

Beds.

- [Brian] Coming together to support students.

These Climatoriums or collaboratives create economies of scale.

Rural school districts are often too small to offer classes that are important to students.

Through collaborating, they have access to more teachers, more courses, and more hands-on learning opportunities.

- So this class is horticulture.

It's personally my favorite class because I love being out in the greenhouse.

We learn a lot about cultivating plants, all the different flowers that need to be pruned different ways and like how it's important to rotate them so that one of 'em, like a certain amount of trays don't get too dried out.

- We still look for sustainability as being something that's always in our thoughts.

But we don't wanna limit what we offer to the Yampa Valley youth just to natural resources and the more stereotypical jobs or careers that you think of when you hear the word.

We see that sustainability can be worked into construction trades and agriculture and lots of other fields that are going to be needed to continue to build a resilient region.

(slow music) - This whole last semester, we get to be in here with hands on work.

We get college credit for it.

Transplanted all of those plants since they were little like seedlings and stuff.

And then we'll sell them starting in May.

- [Student 7] The business aspect, I feel is very important.

We get to learn how to sell it and how much the baskets are gonna be worth.

- In Soroco, we're very interested in the ag community and the FFA program that we have at the high school.

So we're looking at a lot of internships in agriculture.

(slow music) S3 stands for Students, Stewardship, and Sustainability.

- [Jay] It's combination of four school districts of Moffitt County, Hayden school district, Steamboat Spring school district, and South Routt school district.

- What S3 does is it helps build collaborative relationships regionally so we can capitalize on each other's strengths and minimize our own weaknesses.

- We have two higher ed partners, Colorado Mountain College and Colorado Northwestern Community College.

And then we have various community, non-profit, and industry partners that are coming on board and helping us to do this work.

The other pilot that has come out is Steamboat Springs really having interest in seeing if there's a way to send some of their students who are interested in agriculture to Oak Creek so that they can utilize Oak Creek's robust ag program.

So a lot of those political barriers that don't seem to impact the work that's going on.

And we're finding that a lot of our schools and our leaders in those schools have the same desire to meet the needs of the kids.

- We teach agriculture from field to table.

It could be an internship on a ranch.

Could be an internship in a restaurant.

Could be an internship in a storefront.

It encompasses the entire process of food, clothing, fuel, production.

- Before entering the agricultural program, I actually wanted to be a chiropractor and leave my family ranch behind.

I was in Jay Wiley's animal science class.

And I just learned like how amazing every step of like agriculture is.

What an opportunity I've been given.

So I have now decided that I wanna come back and run the family ranch.

- I do think that it would be extremely beneficial to just kind of tell everybody in more urban areas kind of about what goes on in places like this because a lot of people really just don't understand it.

This kind of education isn't an opportunity for everybody.

- [Student 8] Does it just like grow in your backyard?

- The whole program has opened my eyes to knowing it's okay to not necessarily go to college.

You could go to trade school.

You can do a ton of different things.

So I guess it's taught me more that there are a lot of options.

And then if you wanna explore them, it's definitely worth it.

- When we're looking at, you know, what's the answer going to be for our region, we maybe don't know at this point what the answer's going to be.

It maybe doesn't exist yet.

And so I think that if we can really help to build resilient individual students, they're going to be able to help us build that pathway towards a resilient future.

- There are some inherent differences, I think, between the communities.

But that's what's so cool about this work is that we're finding the strengths of each of these communities and how we can share and build upon each other.

- Despite all of the challenges, we are all still choosing to work together and to move forward and to build this thing.

- Our ECI is running this week.

Fast forward now to summer 2023 and we have, I believe, 57 students registered.

And it has changed quite a bit from that original roots and inception.

But really, still the same ideas of allowing students to engage in community projects and work that helps them understand what are the environmental pieces that they want to be engaging in within our region to help solve and continuing their leadership skills in that process.

- [Jessica] All right, guys.

One of the things, first things I want you to do is kind of take out your notebooks writing utensil and make some observations here.

What do you see?

What do you hear?

What are your smells?

Is there anything different about the textures?

Those sort of things.

And make some kind of preliminary observations.

Let's go ahead and spread out.

- It's really dropping into curiosity.

Instead of telling, it's really asking.

Understanding what's already happening in our small communities already, that's where we see the real solutions lie.

- Hand me this guy.

So I'm gonna make you guys get a little dirty.

Not sorry.

Come on down.

(slow music) - What are the barriers and then how do we creatively remove them?

It's not just enough to offer free summer programming.

But we really need to stipend students for their time to remove that barrier.

Because we know that there are students who live in families that need to have summer jobs in order to financially support their family.

- [Jessica] So will you bring the auger on over here?

My guess, the toads that are kind of native to here.

- And rural regions in Colorado oftentimes, it is a lot of white people in the room discussing these.

And I think it's really important that as we build out these hubs, we are able to bring in diverse voices from those communities to represent the ways that climate change impacts underrepresented communities, indigenous communities, people who may not look like them or have the same lived experience as they do.

- Got this part.

Okay.

Gotta be methodical about this.

- Those kind of things really make a difference because you can see that it's starting to matter to them, that their eyes are opened to different possibilities.

Caring about the environment and pursuing college disciplines where you could learn more about it or pursuing a career in this field.

(slow music) - So, guys.

Listen up real quick.

The first thing, guys, we're going to do is we're going to measure out from the center of our point or the center of our plot out 40 meters.

And that is where our, start of our study.

What we were learning about today was how controlled burns affect a environment.

If the forest service comes and actually burns this area, we will have data that was before the fire.

And then we'll come back in and we'll collect more data after they burn the fire.

And then we'll have data to compare what it was like prior to the controlled burn.

Let's have you core that tree.

Oh, yep.

- Yeah, here.

That's so cool.

Wait, he's got like a little skull on his back.

I love that.

- So we're gonna get the core of the tree from this, guys.

So as compared to cutting the tree down, what we're doing is we're collecting a core of the tree that allows us to look at both the age of the tree.

The rings tell us a lot about everything from when there was dry seasons versus when we've gotten more rain or more precipitation.

We can also see burn scars within some of those rings if ever there was a fire that happened years and years ago.

(student laughing) - Here's your core.

- And there's your core.

Careful.

That hole when we pull that out is gonna fill with sap to where it actually does not hurt the tree.

The tree will heal itself by filling the hole with sap and then healing itself over time.

- Got a lot of water in the first few however far we got in there.

I'm not sure.

The ring's got super small right here.

So not a lot, as much water, which makes sense 'cause we've been in a drought for a bit.

It's windy, which I have not seen before.

Maybe that could just be my fault, but that's pretty cool.

Yeah, I'm just counting the rings to see how old it is, but they get pretty small so it's not easily told pretty soon here.

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, about 70 years of age.

- And we're probably not all the way to the core.

To me, the hope of ECI is that we expose students to environmental careers that they can potentially have.

And the hope is they, if they like it, that's fantastic.

They can then pursue that as a career.

But it also kind of works the other way as well because if they don't like it, then they're discovering that now as a high schooler that this is something I don't want to do.

If they don't have an idea of those careers, then they'd, it's hard for them to know what they're actually gonna go do.

(students cheering) - One question real quick.

What if I just put a slant- - The foundational piece for ECI is exposure.

For students to explore what's outside and then what's inside of themselves to see how they are going to relate to the environmental sector in their future.

- They're hard to write pretty with.

- So then also, for this trip, we wanna make a vision statement.

We'll all share our own and then decide on one together.

- But again, we're gonna come up with just one sentence that combines like all these great ideas that you guys have had.

Does any group wanna volunteer to go first?

- Our goal is to preserve and love nature while being educated about it and bringing it back to the outside world.

- What do we think about like those three statements?

Like do we want to just pick one of them that we like the most?

Do we like them- - [Students] Yeah.

- Okay.

So preserve and love nature while being educated and bringing it back to our community.

(slow music) - There is about 10 kids, including me, Tal, and Amara coming on the hot trip.

Four of them are from Leadville.

Two are from Denver.

One's from Europe.

And I'm really excited to have them.

(slow music) - As much as it's awesome to have them be these young student leaders, I also hope that they get the chance to still be young people who are learning about the climate and the environment.

Be kids while you're kids.

(laughs) (slow music) - Macroinvertebrates is kind of a snapshot to see how well aquatic life is surviving in their ecosystem.

If we're looking at aquatic life, macroinvertebrates, we're kind of getting a snapshot on the biodiversity that's living in the water as a result of these chemical aspects.

So with that, the more biodiverse a aquatic ecosystem is, the healthier the water is.

The less biodiverse it is, it's not a healthy ecosystem.

- [Student 9] One, two, three, four, five.

(slow music) (students talking indistinctly) - [Bradley] That's why we put them there.

It looks like a fish.

- Ooh, look at this one.

- [Student 11] Okay, that one's fried.

(students talking indistinctly) - [Student 12] Is there an extra spoon?

- [Student 13] Yeah, they're all over there.

- [Student 12] I have tweezers.

I just wanted... (slow music) (students talking indistinctly) - [Bradley] Again, challenging you guys to start to identify.

And this sheet on the top, these are sensitive to pollutants, right?

These are pollution.

(slow music) - [Brian] Although these young activists are doing great work, there's not an official Climatorium Hub in Leadville yet.

But Lyra Colorado is building another solution for students to receive climate pathways from their school districts, a Seal of Climate Literacy.

(upbeat music) - We do this in other areas.

I mean we want our kids to be bilingual and study a second or third language and we offer a Seal of Biliteracy.

- Climate literacy, the ones that we work with.

- The concept for the Seal of Climate Literacy came out of our experience and understanding from communities and students.

And we wanted to, regardless of where a student lives in Colorado, for them to be able to access education and learning around climate.

What we knew was most important is that it related back to their own community.

And one of the pieces of the seal is actually doing experiential learning.

So we're gonna put this whole concept of doing it hands-on learning for students in a piece of legislation in that policy.

And why that's so important.

Two reasons.

One, kids need to have agency over what they're doing.

But they do need some parameters and directions from adults.

- Students who are successful.

So it's not just to your highest performing, your AP students, which, of course- - Giving a chance to get that seal to say, "Hey, I've done a deep dive on climate issues.

I understand how we can make more progress, understand the work that is ahead."

And that's a great outward sign for that student to be able to use as they think about the next steps in their career or the next steps in their education.

- That's fantastic.

- Some of the amazing parts of the seal is that it's gonna enable students to do projects that are relevant to them, that they care about in their own communities.

And the partners for those projects are not just school districts.

It can be a 4-H club.

It can be Future Farmers of America.

It can be Mountain Studies Institute in Durango.

These partners that are already working with districts and are already working with youth now have a way to really deepen that connection.

There's three components.

The first is an academic course.

The second is either a CTE or concurrent enrollment course.

So like a course that a kid could get college credit for.

And the third is this experiential learning aspect.

And our belief is if we create those three together, it will give students agency and understanding, not only for how climate's impacting their community, but what they can do about it and not be powerless in the face of climate change.

We decided to name it the Seal of Climate Literacy, in spite of the fact that we know for some people, just the word climate can make them feel alienated from the work we're trying to do.

And that is not our intent at all.

We wanna appeal to students.

We want students to want this.

And we know, surveying students and rural students throughout Colorado, that climate actually is invigorating to them and is exciting to them and engaging to them.

And we'll work with adults to help them understand that this isn't a political piece.

This is something for students.

This is something that interests them.

One of the things that we believe and is so important to us is that communities really lead around these conversations, that you can't have an outside Denver organization coming in and saying this needs to matter to you.

It really has to be what the community wants.

(slow music) One of the great things about the seal is it actually helps these communities root where they need to be listening to.

And that is to students and that is to youth.

And that these communities need to be following their own kids and the path that they're creating.

Our hope is the seal is gonna empower them to do that.

And it's gonna empower adults to be engaged and working with students in a transformational way.

This isn't an idea like, oh, you checked this box and you did this project and you took these courses.

It really is trying to create a lifelong ethic and connection to their communities forever, for their entire lives.

- We are so intimately connected with the great outdoors, just based on where we live.

That for us, climate change feels very real and present.

Our kids grow up with the threat of wildfire.

It is a real and present threat.

Understanding the impacts of drought, what it has meant for Colorado to be hotter and drier.

That direct connection and that experiential part of learning for us in our school districts in the High Country is really powerful.

- [Student 14] If you wanna, if you can't see the middle, it's not- - We've been so focused on Colorado, but we have had interest nationally in the model.

Any state that has this combination of agriculture and recreation, the Climatorium model could really work there.

If Colorado can do it, maybe they can do it too.

- I don't get it.

- You're in the middle.

You're not taking- (students talking indistinctly) - How do people start this?

It really is one small step.

And then it's the step after.

And with each step, there's challenges.

And then you identify, okay, how do we fix those challenges?

So sometimes, it feels like a sideways step and then it's one step forward again.

And we wouldn't be able to do it by ourselves.

I really see ECI and the Climatorium Hubs being able to be a model, to be able to say, "Oh, this is how we get our local communities of rural regions involved and a voice in order to be able to build out for a larger impact across the nation."

And I don't think we're gonna stop there.

- [Student 15] The wildlife.

- I do not know the land my ancestors came from, but I feel called to the sky and Earth here.

As the ancient knowledge of the Utes has been lost in many ways, I listen carefully to the breeze.

What stories of our past is being whispered through the trees?

Certainly, the pebble of quartz that once shine from the highest peak and saw it all remembers.

We cannot own this place, but we must not forget.

Everything is connected and losing this will harm us all.

- I can't even read my own handwriting.

Hold on, guys.

I'm sorry.

Alrighty.

Okay.

- This trip has made me realize that beauty is all around us.

- Outside of town, inside the city, inside the state, inside the country.

- It's now our job to care for and preserve the natural landscape.

- Placing yourself.

- [Student 16] Exploring it and having fun.

On it with my family and friends.

I appreciate and respect the people that lived here before me.

- I love the land I live on.

I love the land I get to explore.

The many adventures that nature provides us.

A getaway from bustling traffic and noisy neighbors.

(students clapping) (slow music) (students talking indistinctly) (students laughing) - [Student 17] Don't feed the wildlife.

(slow music) - [Student 18] Do you know which way is north?

- [Student 19] That way is Florida.

- [Student 18] Look, that way is north.

(students talking indistinctly) (slow music) (students talking indistinctly) - This work has made me really hopeful.

These communities have made me hopeful.

These kids have made me hopeful.

If we can just follow others and we can learn their values, we can learn how work around climate really relates to what they need to see happen, then this is solvable.

And do I think the work that we're doing is gonna end, you know, climate change and it's gonna make the planet completely more habitable?

I don't.

But I do believe that it's a part of this process.

And I believe that these students will find other people that care about these issues and we're creating that platform for them to do that.

And that's the most important thing.

And as adults, we also suffer eco anxiety.

We also feel this deep sense of responsibility to kids.

And that's also a helpless feeling.

Like what are we leaving these children with and what have we done to them?

And I think having adults be working with the kids also as a mental health protector and a wonderful thing for the adults too.

(upbeat music) - Ultimately, action has to happen day by day at a local level.

And that's what I really love the chance to do more climate education because without that, other progress is gonna be impossible.

System level progress is impossible if you don't have an engaged and excited set of voters and young people who are willing to back that action.

And that's one of the things I really love about the work that Lyra is doing.

We're gonna need everybody involved in creating these groups that are focused in and really trying to tackle the problem on a local level and making sure everyone has a great understanding of what's happening, you know, all the way from the the global science that we get from the UN all the way down to what can I do in my community and how can I work across generations and across different areas of civil society.

I mean, that's exactly what we need.

Every single one of us is gonna have to take ownership of our part of the climate crisis and figure out what we can do and how we can do more.

(upbeat music) - The impacts of climate change are here.

They're impacting us now.

And those impacts will be with us for decades to come.

There's really a need for us to all think about how climate change will impact the things that we love and care about and what we can do to contribute to solutions.

And everybody will have a role to play in contributing to solutions.

Not everyone needs to understand the ins and outs of the most complex climate models to advance solutions.

What they need to understand is ask the questions of what can I do in my community?

How can I show up?

How can I contribute?

How can I say that I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get involved?

- I think the thing that kind of stood out to me today just- - When you see the difference you can make in your own river or your own land and just being tied to that land, it matters to you.

It's part of your identity.

And if we don't do it together, we can't do it alone.

- It makes sense just to start at the foundation, at the bottom, building up our communities.

And that's where we're going to make the greatest impact on the sustainability of our ecosystems and our climate.

- [Student 20] I don't know.

(students talking indistinctly) - [Student 21] What part?

What part?

- I think the call to action is to take a small step.

It does not have to be like we are fixing the planet today.

It is thinking, how can I support one student, one teacher, one community?

(upbeat music) - Small things do matter, especially with something that is this big.

And it's hard to remember to not lose hope when it is such a big issue.

But they definitely give me hope for young people and our community and what our world could be.

(upbeat music) - [Student 22] Are we not taking a picture?

- [Brian] Famed climate activist Greta Thunberg once said, "I have learned you are never too small to make a difference."

And that's exactly the Climatorium model.

With each community working together and with each student feeling the local impact they are making, small change is happening.

Each Climatorium Hub adds up to big change, one rural community at a time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (slow music) (slow music continues)