Well good evening, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us.

I hope everyone has thawed after the long weekend, and we have a truly special evening ahead of us tonight, and I'm excited to get us kicked off.

My name is Meghan Sivakoff.

I'm COO at lyra, and before I pass the mic to our fabulous opening speaker, Speaker of the House Julie McCluskey, I'd like to take a few moments to recognize some key individuals and organizations, who played a really vital role in making both this film possible as well as tonight possible.

So first, a heartfelt thank you to Julie Speer Jackson of Julie Speer Productions and Truce Media.

Julie, give a wave.

As our producer of this film alongside our very talented videographer Sarah Hamilton, they brought this project to life with incredible creativity over multiple years, and it took years to make.

But we are so grateful that she agreed to partner with us on this project.

We would also like to give, a sincere thank you to Rocky Mountain PBS.

They are airing this film next Thursday night at 7 p.m. and they have been generous, generous co-sponsors of this event and amazing hosts for tonight's screenings.

So thank you, Rocky Mountain PBS and Mark and Sarah.

I'd also like to recognize some of the other elected officials who are joining us here tonight.

Colorado Board of Education member Lisa Escárcega and Board Chair Rebecca McClellan.

I also want to recognize Angelika Schroeder, who recently left the state board.

Please stand for us.

Thank you guys for being here and for your continued dedication to education in Colorado.

A big shout out to our team at Lyra.

I am very lucky to work alongside such an amazing, dedicated group of individuals.

Emily Southwell, who I'm not seeing at the moment.

But you may have met her already this evening.

Ellarie Anderson and Elizabeth Harbaugh, who couldn't be here tonight, as well as Mary Sewell, who you will all hear from later this evening.

And we have some of our board members in attendance tonight.

Thank you.

To the Lyra board.

For your constant guidance and strategic support.

Abby Schaller, Kate Bartlett, Jess Roberts, and Tom Gougeon.

So thank you all.

And of course, none of this would be possible without generous support from our funders.

So a special thank you to the Gates Family Foundation who helped to launch Lyra's work and Lyra in Rural Climate education.

As well as to the Margulf Foundation for their faith and partnership in us.

and making the development of this film possible.

And finally, and most importantly, thank you to the partners in Yampa Valley, in southwest Colorado and in Lake County, who are all featured in this film.

Your voices and stories are so central to this project, and thank you for your trust and partnership.

We I'm very excited for the panel of students and educators who are going to follow the screening of this film and share their stories, moderated by Katie Navin.

And Mary will be introducing them later.

But thank you all for being here tonight.

You may be wondering why an endeavor to make a documentary.

And in our work, we believe deeply in the power of storytelling.

Stories are how we connect to each other, how we share our challenges, our triumphs, and our vision for the future.

Stories are, helpful to bridge divides across political and ideological lines.

And the conversations that we've seen happening in Colorado rural communities about resilience in the face of a changing climate are powerful.

So are the efforts that are underway to prepare our youth as the next generation workforce that has to both live with and address these challenges.

So we hope that by sharing these local efforts, other communities can see themselves in this work, feel empowered, and understand that their voices matter.

And with that, I'm really honored to introduce our opening speaker for the evening, Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives Julie McCluskey.

Speaker McCluskey represents Colorado House district 13, which includes counties Chaffee.

Oh, gosh.

Cherry I was like this.

Which includes Chaffee Grande, Jackson Lake Park and Summit County, a proud native Coloradoan, she lives in Summit County and has spent much of her career in public education.

Throughout her time in the legislature, speaker McCluskey has been a champion for equitable funding for public schools, workforce development programs, and economic opportunities for rural communities.

She's also led efforts to combat the climate crisis, to protect public lands, and to preserve the beauty of Colorado's natural resources.

I can think of no one better to open for this event tonight.

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Speaker McCluskey.

(applause) Thank you, Meghan.

Oh.

Thank you.

What an honor it is to be here tonight.

I am just delighted to join you for the the premier of "Climatarium".

I had a sneak preview last night and was so inspired by the stories.

Really appreciate that comment about storytelling, and I want to get back to that in a minute.

I want to talk first just about being a Coloradan.

You know, we are an amazing breed of people.

We are here either because we were born and raised and refused to leave, or we've moved here because of our iconic Rocky Mountains, our exceptionally beautiful, vibrant green forests, the waterways that so many of us raft, fish or enjoy.

And it is truly exciting to see the level of connection that so many of our kids have to what we value in this state.

My kids have grown up in Summit County, and I remember in eighth grade the river study where they got on their boots and galoshes and raincoats and went out in the snow in the middle of winter to do some river experimentation.

And my kids grew up at Keystone Science School, really falling in love with what it means to understand snow in the great outdoors.

But the climate change threats are so real in our state that we are seeing those in our own backyards, right?

The threat of wildfire, the prolonged drought that has impacted the Colorado River, and so many of our our beautiful water ways.

And it's our kids and the hope that we see in this next generation that we need to capture, hang on to and fuel.

Right?

The Seal of Climate Literacy, a piece of legislation that moved through the House in the Senate just a few short years ago is now come to life.

And when you watch the film and realize what this kind of opportunity the doors that this this seal opens for a student graduating from high school, 10% growth in green jobs between 2022 and 2027.

That means the opportunities are rich and the interest even richer.

I am.

I am so honored to serve the six counties of my district, and even more honored to serve as the speaker of the House.

I am the first woman to serve from the Western Slope, and I am the first woman to serve for four years as Speaker of the House.

And I will.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I will tell you that being on the Western slope, living at the base of the mountains, I have the tremendous opportunity to lift up the voices of this great state, recognizing how important our environment is to us today and to our future, and being a strong advocate for our public schools.

I was so proud to watch rural educators embrace the idea of of climate action in their schools with their kids through experiential learning programs in agriculture, in in outdoor rec, learning what it means to be a part of the entire ecosystem of this state.

Just such a powerful, powerful story.

And if there is anything that matters in politics, it's being able to share your story.

So if you are a student here tonight, will you raise your hand for me really high?

Be proud.

Be proud.

I love it all right.

Every one of you is invited to come to the Capitol.

We're in session until May 7th.

I want you to come down and share your story.

Share your story of why this program is important to you, what it means to you, why climate action is so important to you, and your family and your friends.

We need to hear your stories, because that's what moves mountains.

And nothing could be more important right now than having your partnership in inspiring all of us old folks that are down there in that building.

So thank you all.

I really appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight.

Lyra.

Thank you Mary.

Thank you so much, Meghan.

The entire team that put this film together, Rocky Mountain PBS, what a great group of champions.

And I will unfortunately not be able to stay for the the panel.

Sorry that I'm going to miss the kids.

But again, please, please come visit us.

Come visit.

Come visit your public servants.

Learn more about the Seal of Climate Literacy and let us know how we can better support you and your journey to be a climate action warrior.

Thank you all.

(applause) Amazing.

Thank you, Speaker McCluskey, for those inspiring words and your leadership in education and climate advocacy.

And now please enjoy the documentary.

(applause) (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 Climatarium Hub adds up to big change, one rural community at a time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (slow music) Well, thank you all for.

For listening to this story and especially the stories of the communities that we get to work with and see every day.

And it's, we're going to have a panel in just a few minutes.

I just wanted to say a few words, and very excited that some of the people in this film are going to be here today.

The documentary really, ends where a lot of the work has begun, and that's where we really want to focus this panel, that's coming up.

The Seal of Climate Literacy has expanded from those students that just this past May, so just graduated less than a year ago to what we hope is, over 500 students in the school year that will receive, the Seal of Climate Lliteracy.

Lyra has been working closely with the Colorado Department of Education and many communities to give technical assistance.

So they really understand.

How do you take this piece of legislation and policy and actually make it something that is very unique to these communities, these school districts, these charters?

And we've given in that process, almost $100,000 in these small implementation grants.

So the panel you're going to hear today is really about taking it from this rural context and really moving it to, the urban areas, the Front Range, the larger, urban and suburban communities of Colorado.

And what we knew when we did our believed, when we did the Seal of Climate if we could show this was doable in rural communities first, if we could show that this actually was the ethic and what people cared about in rural areas, the urban areas would follow.

And we hope we're going to see that.

We're very excited about the possibilities.

And the growth.

And it can be discouraging, in this moment around climate, climate change and the US, just as you probably know, this week pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, you know, which every country, except for four in the US is now one of four not a part of, but my hope is that you'll leave this theater tonight.

Seeing this hearing from our panelists, that this is actually a time of great hope, and that we are resilient just as our environments are resilient.

And if we can just create these opportunities that it is going to be through these small ways that we're actually going to see real change.

And even if our some of our political leaders don't see that opportunity, our youth definitely does.

And we believe in them, and we need to get out there and support them and do as much as we can.

So we have students on the panel.

We have other students that are in the audience.

Thank you.

This is a lot about high school.

And we're seeing high school students, but definitely want to recognize the way the Seal is set up that actually, middle school students can also start to do the experiential learning as early as middle school.

And so we want to recognize two middle schoolers from different public schools that are here.

I'm going to ask them to introduce themselves, their school and also why this, climate change is important to them.

And working around climate matters.

Hi, I'm Kaden O'Kelly, sixth or seventh grader at Morey Middle School, and I care because it's our future.

We need to save it.

And you know, Thats what its all about.

(applause) Hello, I'm Oscar Park.

I'm a seventh grader at McAuliffe International School.

And, yeah, it's it's very important because we need to be ready for the future, and we need to understand it.

Thank you, Oscar.

That was great.

Thank you both.

And I just because I have the microphone, I get to do a lot of things that no one gave me permission to do, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Royce, where are you?

Okay, here's racing USA.

I can just stand up for just a second.

Who is a Colorado college?

You're a junior.

Yes, he is a junior, but he was in our first class, along with Tal and the Environment Climate Institute.

He's from Bayfield and is just going to do extraordinary things and just had to.

It's just so amazing to have you here and Tal here and others as well, that have been on this journey from the very beginning.

So thank you for being here.

I'm going to ask Katie Navin to come up.

So, there just have been many partners.

A lot of you are here in the crowd.

I should name all of them.

Like Rachel Balkcom is here and her incredible leadership with the STEAD school.

And there's just there's just so many people.

But I can't think of anyone that has actually helped more to make the Seal of Climate Literacy happen, than Katie Navin.

She is with the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education.

And really let us and the first time we ever actually spoke about the Seal of Climate Literacy, she asked us to come speak, in September of 23, to environmental educators to talk about this.

And we got incredible feedback that then shifted and changed the legislation.

And she also was an incredible advocate for herself.

So we could think of no better person, speaking about this and to be really talking to our students then, Katie.

Thank you.

Katie.

Thank you.

(applause) Awesome.

Well, I would love to invite all our panelists to join us up here on the stage.

And I just want to say, wow, what an incredible demonstration of the power of climate education and what happens when students and teachers and communities are all coming together.

Let's give one more round of applause to Lyra and all the work that they have done to really steward these collaborative.

(applause) It's really amazing what has been accomplished so far.

As Mary said, my name is Katie.

And, climate change education is near and dear to my heart.

We are an organization that works to support the many types of educators who are doing the work to teach about the environment and to connect people with nature.

And this is a really critical avenue for what we need in education in Colorado.

We're actually just finishing a landscape analysis of climate education or of environmental and outdoor learning in Colorado and across five other states, and we learned a lot.

We did ask teachers how much time they were spending on climate education over half of the respondents either answered zero or didn't answer the question.

So there's a huge gap in the students that actually have access to these types of learning opportunities.

But that means there's a tremendous opportunity there and a tremendous opportunity to learn from the amazing work that's happening across the state.

And as Mary said, we know this isn't just important for rural students.

They face unique challenges, but it's important for all students across the state.

And so I'm so excited to hear the stories and the work that is happening, both in rural communities and in our more urban and front range communities.

To scale this work across the state.

So I'd love to introduce our powerhouse panel here.

And if you wouldn't mind waving when I, read your name, that would be great.

So you already met Tal Sheleg.

Like, who is in the documentary?

She is a senior at Lake County High School in Leadville, and she's also active in theater, in addition to all of the work that she does in sustainability.

Cassie DeClaw is a junior at STEAD school, which is a project based hands on learning high school in science, technology, environment, agriculture and Systems Design in Commerce City.

And she's a strong student athlete in volleyball.

We also have Ian Morlan, who is a senior at DSST-Cedar High School in Denver who loves to hike, fish and do anything outdoors.

We have Rylan Neumann, who is a senior at Fairview High School in Boulder.

She's an accomplished swimmer and also loves hammocking by Alpine Lake.

In addition to all the amazing work she's doing in sustainability, and we also have some amazing educators with us, Erin Greenwood is the science coordinator and curriculum lead for sustainability and climate education at Boulder Valley School District.

She has over 20 years of experience at BVSD, many of those as a middle school science teacher.

And last but not least, Nicci Condon, who you also met in the documentary.

She's a high school science teacher at Lake County High School.

The adult mentor for the Fighters for Restoration of Green Spaces, which is a student led club.

And she was actually named Teacher of the Year in Lake County.

(applause) You are looking at our trailblazers, the folks who are trying things out, doing the work.

The folks who we're going to learn from your successes and your challenges that will help us scale this work across the state.

So I'm so excited to jump in, dig into your stories, and help us figure out how to move this work forward.

So I want to get started with our students, and you are all working to earn Colorado's brand new Seal of Climate Literacy, which requires you to complete an experiential learning project.

So, Cassie, I'm going to ask you to kick us off and tell us a little bit about the project you're working on and what motivated you to take the project on.

So I'm working on I actually did it last summer.

I was on a farm in our school.

It's a half acre.

I worked on the summer farm and just got it up to speed.

It was a lot of work, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We had a lot of sustainable practices, like we had natural pollinators or native pollinators, flower patches around the farm that brought in the native pollinators.

And then we also did not use any chemical, pesticides and herbicides.

And we all use our hands.

And it was very hands on learning.

I would say what motivated me the most is probably just all the classes I've taken at that school, plant science, horticulture, greenhouse management, all these classes, AP, environmental science, a lot of classes that were geared towards that, that just got me thinking.

Ready to go work on the farm.

So, That's amazing.

And paving the way for so many other students to experience that.

Tal.

What a what?

Tell us a little bit about your project and what challenges you have overcome as you've been working on it.

Since my junior year, I've been working towards getting renewable energy, specifically solar panels, at my high school.

The biggest challenge I've had to overcome was not being taken seriously because of my age.

The first step in this project was to present to the school board.

During that initial presentation, I felt I wasn't being taken seriously.

So I invited all the school board members to go grab a coffee with me so I could explain the project more to them.

That coffee and conversation helped them warm up to the idea of the project.

And after a couple months, they passed that.

That's really exciting because we can start talking to solar installation companies.

I was at these solar installation meetings with board members, school board members, administrators, and of course, the companies.

At these meetings, I felt I was pushed to the side because of my age.

But when I realized these meetings weren't actually super productive, there was talk of solar panels, but nothing was actually getting done.

I decided to use my organization skills and hop on at the end of meetings and say, okay, what are our next steps?

What are action items?

And always follow up with an email.

And so over time, their attitudes changed towards me.

And I assumed the role of project manager.

I love it.

Way to keep on pushing.

Rylan, tell us about your project and what's been your biggest learning in your work so far?

Yeah, so my project is actually related to this idea of climate literacy.

So in Boulder Valley School District, I am on a team working to actually implement the Seal of Climate Literacy.

So my experiential learning project is more of a portfolio.

And that's how we're approaching the Seal of Climate Literacy.

So I'm working on a bunch of projects like the Seal of Climate Literacy.

that are to get students more involved in climate change and acting on climate change.

So what we're I'm kind of focused on is the problem that we need more climate education, which is kind of what this whole documentary was focused on.

So I have been working with a group of other students to expand climate literacy in my school district.

So yeah, I've been learning a lot about how systems work and trying to get all of this implemented.

Amazing.

Ian, we would love to hear a little bit about your project and how you think participating in the project will support your next steps after high school?

Yeah, absolutely.

The, part of my school, we have a class called Gship or Global Leadership.

And basically what this classes is meant to do is it's meant to pair, students with industry professionals.

And the entire point of the class is for environmental stewardship.

And so we had a summit, actually, in Switzerland over the summer that I had the privilege to go to.

That was pretty great.

And, but what I had, the chance to do is I and a few of my friends, we had a organization called trowel in the classroom, and this is kind of what it seems like.

We had a tank that was taken into our classroom.

And we had the privilege to raise trout over the course of the whole year.

And trout are obviously a really important part of, like, Colorado Stream ecosystems.

And it was it was really cool to work with them.

We got to have a little presentation for our middle school side.

Talking to them about it.

So that was that was very great as well.

And then for my future, we'll, we'll sort of see where that where that takes me a little bit.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Now imagine.

These projects times 500 the students will be doing across the state.

I can't believe how amazing this work is that you're taking on.

I'd love to dig in a little bit about the how of the work.

So Tal, as we saw in the documentary, you've taken on a lot of leadership roles, both as the leader of the Fighters for Restoration of Green Spaces.

You're an executive committee member of the Good Trouble Network.

You are a youth leader for the 2025 Colorado Youth Summit.

Youth Climate summit.

And so let me ask you.

We've seen, I would say, in recent years, a shift from individual action to mitigate the the effects of climate change to more collective action.

What strategies have you taken on that have helped get other students involved?

So it has been a struggle to get my peers involved.

I understand that my classmates have work, they go to school, and they have other extracurricular activities.

So if I want them to participate in my efforts, I know I need to meet them where they're at.

An example of this is my Earth Day event that my environmental club runs and hosts every year.

This event has about ten interactive stations that students can explore.

My favorite stations are a micro invertebrate station and a recycling relay.

For this event, I envision having high school students manning the stations for younger grades, but I struggled to get my peers to volunteer.

In my high school, we need community service hours in order to graduate.

So I talked to administration and got it.

So if people volunteered for my event, they could get community service hours in return.

This proved successful and we had 15 volunteers, and they also gained a lot of leadership during the event.

They had to be competent and commanding while still being enthusiastic for the kids.

So after that event, many of them joined my club and became more involved in community initiatives.

I love your creativity.

Rylan.

You've been very actively involved in the BVSD Sunrise Movement and were instrumental in lobbying for the Green New Deal for Schools resolution in BVSD.

In addition to organizing public comment on the state academic standards to include more climate change education.

So can you talk a little bit about what the key factors have been and and what's been successful in advocating for more climate change education from your perspective as a student?

Yeah, I'd say the biggest factor in the success of all of our work has been just persistence and continually showing up.

So we started showing up to school board meetings, I think lot in the in my sophomore year, at the end of the year, and we just continually showed up until November when my school board finally passed our Green New Deal for schools resolution.

And I ended up being, I think, eight school board meetings that we attended and gave public comment at.

And there are different students giving public comment at each board meeting.

And the board members were just shocked that students had this passion to continually show up time after time to voice their concerns and what we wanted.

So I'd say the biggest tools we had were continually showing up and also getting a big base of students.

We recruited so many students.

We have over 50 students in the Sunrise Movement and BSD, and it just continues growing as we continue to make big impacts and continue to show up and try to make a better world.

I love that.

I can see that persistence showing up in in all of your stories.

Cassie, you've been, you serve as a student ambassador for the STEAD school, and you testified in support of the Seal for Climate Literacy legislation.

So you've been engaged?

Very engaged in this work.

You talked a little bit about your motivation for taking on your your project, but I'd love to zoom out a little bit and talk more about that motivation.

Big picture.

Why do you think it's important and what motivates you to continue learning about the changing climate in your community?

I would say the biggest, factor to this is I'm Native American, and I want to say that I really appreciate you guys implementing that in the documentary.

It's so important.

There needs to be a lot more education on, just the overall health of the reservation.

And I just think it's so important that me being Native American and me seeing the issues in my community and what climate change is doing to my community, you know, with the Colorado River and with all the electricity shortages, everything that is going on, it's just such a big issue to me personally.

And I'm so passionate about that.

And I think that's the biggest motivation for me.

I love that you're sharing your cultural heritage and and bringing that passion into this work.

Ian, you are actually working to get an environmental club started at your school.

And you talked about this a little bit already.

But how is working on getting a club started working on sustainability and climate advocacy efforts?

How is that better preparing you for the future?

Yeah, I think one of the main thing that's doing is, is I definitely want to go into forestry and fisheries conservation.

That's something that I'm been passionate about.

That's something that I've loved to do since I was a little kid.

And so I think that's, you know, for me, but also trying to, you know, sort of seep that love into, into a few of my friends, you know, my sort of small community that I have sort of within my, within my school, and trying to get that going a little bit, and trying to, you know, trying to impart that sort of love that I have on them, also for, for my own, like, career interests.

So, yeah.

And I do want to shout out, Ian shared that he is a finalist for several scholarships and he just found out today.

So you are well on your way to preparing for the future.

I'd love to get some perspective from our educators, and we know that this work takes a lot of time.

It takes a lot of dedication.

So, Nicci, we we saw from the documentary you've been with this project from the beginning.

Can you share a little bit more about what's happened since the documentary, and how has the response from students and your school changed?

Thanks, Katie.

I would say, first of all, that our club has continued to have really big dreams for what we can do and how we can impact other communities.

And, you know, you've name several things that that tall has been involved in.

And we've expanded our Earth Day events to work with younger kids throughout our school district, and they've done lots of other smaller projects within our community, and they are definitely doing the work to make our community and make our state and our planet a better place.

And in that same breath, there have definitely still been challenges that we've faced.

There's been some resistance, potentially, or pushback against some of the initiatives that we've tried to start.

And we've continued to struggle a little bit with, bringing more recruiting more people into our club and engagement and I think generally, you know, engagement is a nationwide issue right now, just getting more youth to be a part of it.

And right now, even it's really just inspiring to be in this room and next to all these really amazing students who are really engaged in the work.

And I think it really just goes to show how much like youth can persist.

I think sometimes as an adult, we get a little bit more narrow minded about what is possible and what can be.

But and I think the documentary did a great job of showing this, but youth really do have this vision of the future and what is possible, and they see more opportunities there.

And for me as an educator, it's so amazing to work with young people who can share that vision and bring me into and continue to rejuvenate this, this feeling, instead of feeling like stuck in, I don't know, like there's nothing more we can do.

They continue to just be like, no, we can do this.

Like, here's another fun, amazing, inspiring idea.

And I really do hope that some of the incentives we've pulled in with the Seal of Climate Literacy and some of the trips that we've planned with our club, continue to bring more people in.

And really, in this last year, it has been they they showed it that the rectory, they're like FROGS has like ten new members.

And we're like, yes, like that really is pretty big for us, and especially in a smaller school and, you know, Tal, Indigo and Amara are graduating this year.

So for me, I'm thinking about like, how do we get more students to, to fill their shoes and to continue really big shoes that they're leaving behind.

Right.

And how do we continue to push these efforts forward as they graduate and leave the school?

And, you know, during our clubs that we we continue to have conversations about how we can just in our everyday life, make little things possible to to how our lives intersect with climate and environmentalism and holding each other accountable for it.

And I guess the one last thing I wanted to say, you know, is, as we continue to want to recruit more members, I want to invite, you know, the the other youth that are on the panel here and, those of you who might be sitting in the audience to to connect with us, we we really do want to have more young people, becoming part of our group and being part of our dream to make our planet a better place.

And, you know, to the more the more young people we have that are part of it, the the bigger our dream can become and the more we're going to be able to make possible.

So, yeah, connect with us.

You know, after the show, like we're here.

So, and we try to do it in a fun way.

I'm thinking about in the documentary, Indigo is like, sometimes, it can be fun and sometimes it can be miserable.

But the best part about having, like, Tal and these girls on our team is they are, like, so focused on making it fun.

So, join us in making fun.

Important climate action happen.

It's so evident the strong partnership that you've created with the students at the school.

And, I just thank you for creating those pathways for students like Tal to lead.

That's incredible.

Erin, would love to hear from you.

BVSD has a really long standing commitment to sustainability, and was the first school district in the entire country to adopt the resolution from the Green New Deal for schools, which happened in 2023.

Now, with the Seal of Climate Literacy, you're working to ensure that students at every grade level will have these types of positive, powerful learning experiences.

And I'd love to hear what you would share with other schools and districts who want to start this work.

Sure.

Thanks, Katie.

First of all, I think share is the key word.

So, Boulder Valley School District, we have a history of sustainability.

But it really took, a group of about ten students going to our school board for an entire year to give us a little ignition around that.

The Green New Deal for schools.

We have several resolutions now that we're working towards.

One of the six is that student voice is elevated in all of our action planning.

So, now that Rylan is working on her Seal of Climate Literacy, it I told her it's very meta.

It's like a funhouse mirror where you're learning how to implement The Seal to get your seal.

And so she's like, what's meta?

I'm like, you know, when you see your face a million times in the funhouse.

but that has been our, our best strategy.

We have we're a school district of 27,000 young scientists in 500 square miles.

So thinking about scaling, we have some of the same issues as our rural partners.

So our goal is to always share the work that we're doing.

And make sure whatever our Green Youth Council, which is our student voice body, comes up with that, we share that, so we've been able to meet with many other districts and just talk through what does it look like?

How could all students in our district be climate literate?

Why would we put narrow guardrails on the types of courses students can take?

Let's think broadly.

So every student has access.

And through our student voice piece.

We're really able.

To think through what the student experience is like.

And so sometimes it's just those of us who are adults, we might think we're leading the way, but we just need to get out of the way.

And let our.

Students do the leading and we can do.

Some of that guidance.

Around that.

Think about, like.

How to work within a system, how to sort of switch between grassroots activism and collective action, how to move big groups, you know, like how do you move a big system to make changes and actually implement this work?

And then the other thing I would say to our districts, you know, we're we're always out there to share, as I said, but the other piece that I think came through really clearly, in the documentary is think about your strengths and what you already have in place It's not a reinvent the wheel, It's accentuate the wheel and maybe put like some really nice racing tires on right.

And so all of our districts have amazing things going on and amazing programing.

And it's really just thinking through how does that look?

Who could we partner with to maybe enhance that.

And thinking about how to then grow on what you've already got.

You know, for us, it was really working with our standards and thinking about we've got science standards for all these courses.

We don't have a climate course in BVSD, so we're writing one.

We're just really thinking through and like going with our strengths.

We have great teachers and great students.

And we've got an interest form out there.

We've got about 37 seniors who are looking at graduating this spring with the Seal.

We've already graduated one senior early, and it was really awesome to celebrate her.

So that those are just a few things that I've thought about through the process that we've gone through.

Well, congratulations on all that work and your students coming through the program.

And I love that idea of sharing.

And there is a lot of collective wisdom in this room.

I, I value that advice tremendously.

So last question.

Rapid fire.

Love to hear from all of you.

I lost it.

So we know that one of the biggest contributors to anxiety around climate change is feeling like the problem is too big to solve.

By pursuing the Seal of Climate Literacy in for yourself or for your schools and districts.

Each of you is taking action.

What would you tell other students and all of us here about how each of us can make a difference?

And Rylan, we'll kick it off on your end.

Yeah, I would just say that you probably have some idea of like, what aspect of the climate crisis you're you want to make an impact on, and if you don't, that's great to just start exploring.

But if you have some idea, just dive right into it.

Because if you get involved and you put your whole heart into it and you don't have to if you don't have time to.

But I think you should because it's very rewarding.

Anyway, just you can do hard things and be persistent with it and dive right in.

I would say that if you're ever wanting to change the world, literally because this is affecting every single person in this room, I think that you should always be conscious of what you're contributing to the world.

And I think that it's always good to know, where you stand within the climate change crisis and just being able to even go out and buy more organic produce, or even go out to your local farmers and just be like, hey, I'm interested in like buying from you.

I think that's really a big thing to people, and it's very rewarding to just buy local food that's grown next door.

It's so amazing to see, people locally to grow your own food.

So.

I would say that if an invitation comes your way to try something, say yes.

And if a door is open, walk through it.

And if the door isn't open, but you feel compelled to act, definitely knock or nudge that door.

Or maybe knock it down.

And if that door is locked, just go through the window instead and find a way.

To get it done.

I would say, given my context, being in a very urban school, I think just exposing people to trying to develop like a love of nature, like even something as simple as that.

I think trying to expose people to that, trying to get people to try to get people to care because, you know, they're not going to, go for something they don't care about.

And so I think starting small, starting with something practical that people can do and within their context, something that doesn't seem so overwhelming, because, you know, it can seem like a very overwhelming thing, like, you know, the world is crashing down.

But I think it's, you know, if you start small, it seems like it's, you know, it's just one step at a time.

Yeah.

I love the phrase think globally, act locally because small changes can have a big impact.

I think it's relatively easy and cheap to have environmental initiatives at your local library or community garden.

For example, in Leadville, we have lots of events where you can make your own reusable bag.

And I've noticed as I go running on the local trails, there are far less plastic bags than there have been in previous years.

For me personally, my answer to that question is I became an educator.

I know that the biggest way I can make an impact on this world is by working with young people and hopefully inspiring them to see the world in a different way.

And I think a great example of this is my environmental science class this year.

At the the end of the semester, I asked them to reflect on, how the class went and what they could take away to continue to be an environmentalist.

And almost all of them said, I'm not interested in following a green job, but, all of them did say something about how they they learned about an issue in our community that they didn't realize was there before, or they realized that being an environmentalist was as simple as doing nothing.

We went to the Denver Zoo, and we learned about how, you know, don't clean your windows, don't, like, rake the the leaves from your yard.

And I think just having them know that, these issues exist and just having them care a little bit more, having more people just care that our environment is important, that our planet is important, will make the world a better place.

That is amazing advice.

And I, I wish everyone in all of our schools could hear it.

Thank you.

What I'd like to leave us all with.

I just started reading this book.

What if we get it right?

And for all the climate activists in this room, you probably have seen or heard this book.

It's by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

And I picked it up last night, and the back of the book says "To envision the world we want to create, it helps to know the many ways that we are already creating it."

And that's what you're seeing here.

And I want to thank you for doing that work to create the world that we all want to see.

The the efforts that you're putting in, the things that you're making happen, the education that you're bringing to your schools is incredible.

And making such a huge difference in the world.

And that's the world that I want to live in.

So let's give our panelists a huge round of applause.

(applause) Thank you so much, Katie.

And I just want to recognize not just the students, but the school districts and charter schools that are being these early adopters of the Seal of Climate Literacy.

They are really stepping out and they're actually paving the way.

And I appreciated what Erin said.

They're going to learn from each other and see this opportunity.

And there are many others you know, that aren't here at Denver Public Schools.

Abby's here.

They're doing it in 20 of their schools, as well.

And so there's just so many, you know, schools that right now are doing this and they're going to have graduates coming this May.

So just really exciting time in Colorado.

And I really think making us a model for other places and states.

So thank you all so much.

Just want to do a quick plug.

You've already seen the documentary.

If you can't not watch.

It a second time.

It's going to be aired on January 30th on Rocky Mountain PBS, and hopefully more people will have a chance to see it.

And I think there's another slide about the Youth Climate Institute.

It's going to be.

May 2nd and 3rd.

It's going to be in Carbondale, Colorado.

Lyra is working with wild Rose and supporting students and others to be able to attend this.

And so it's free for Colorado High School youth and food and lodging, are included.

So if you know of youth that might be interested in this, we would love.

I'd love to have them attend.

And just thank you all for being here.

It's been a real joy.

Thank you.

(applause)