Members of the Collaborative recognize that for many generations adults in the industrialized nations have burned fossil fuels without regard for the impacts on the Earth’s atmosphere and on global warming. Future generations – our children and their children – are faced with cleaning up the mess we have made. We hope the resources on this page will help youth by providing inspiring stories of young people in action, useful information about the causes of global warming, and access to organizations set up specifically to organize and educate youth as change agents in the struggle to stabilize the Earth’s climate.
Documentaries Focused on Youth Actions
Several organizations have been developing excellent documentary shorts describing the climate-related activities of activists youth and youth groups.
Young Voices for the Planet
These videos are designed to share what other youth have accomplished and inspire you to take action on behalf of the planet. To view please go to http://www.youngvoicesonclimatechange.com/youth-climate-videos/
Our Children’s Trust
This is an amazing organization that is assisting youth to file law suits against various states and the federal government for the right to live on a planet with a stable climate and a healthy atmosphere, for present and future generations. Their documentary films “feature the brave young people leading the effort to secure that legal right. For those stories go to https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/short-films/
Ebooks and other Media on Climate Science and Clean Energy
Ebook Series on Climate Science, Climate Change, and Clean Energy
Mon Cochran, a writer in Orleans, MA, is currently completing a climate-related e-book series for young readers that features Pleasant Bay, here on Cape Cod. The first book in the series, titled Just Right: Climate Science for Young Readers, is designed to introduce middle school aged children how Earth maintains a livable temperature and the ways that they can contribute to that effort.
In Just Right Tom, age eleven, and his sister, Julie, age nine, are spending the summer with their grandfather on Cape Cod. When he himself was a child, Grandpa bonded deeply with his native land and waters, and is fascinated by the concept of Earth as a living organism. He proposes that the three of them spend the summer finding out—through direct outdoor experience and the vast resources of the Web—what makes our planet “just right” as a home for living things. Continue reading…….
Youth Initiatives on Cape Cod
Cape Cod Climate Kids: Caring for our Warming Planet
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
– Native American Proverb
In the summer of 2016 Pleasant Bay Community Boating partnered with scientists from The Center for Coastal Studies, the Manoment Center for Conservation Sciences, the national Global Warming Express Program and Mon Cochran, author of the ebook Just Right: Climate Science for Young Readers to provide a two-week climate science, arts, and action adventure for 8-12 year old youth. The two-week program involved daily outdoor field trips on Pleasant Bay and on the Atlantic Ocean, climate-related indoor activities, an introduction to the climate sciences (marine, atmospheric, earth and planetary science, and chemistry), a taste of the arts (performing, visual arts, writing, music), and advocacy skills-building. The Cape Cod Climate Kids video provides a nice summary of the 2016 program.
This program will be offered again during the summer of 2018. For more information contact Mon Cochran at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Youth Climate Summit 2017
On Tuesday, April 11th Cape Cod Academy will host the Cape Cod Student Summit on Climate Change and Human Rights on the Academy campus at 50 Osterville-West Barnstable Rd. in Osterville. Students have been invited from all of the high schools on the Cape, and over 100 students are expected to attend.
The program, which begins at 8 am on the 11th, will open with an introductory film (Saving Paradise: Sea Level Rise), followed by several short documentaries featuring youth who are engaged in actions to combat climate change. The second half of the morning will consist of plenary sessions focused on climate science and policy, local climate history, local energy use and responses, and local resiliency actions. Presenters will include staff from the Woods Hole Research Center, faculty from Cape Cod Community College and an educator from the Association to Preserve Cape Cod.
In the afternoon students will lead small group discussions of the personal behaviors, municipal programs and policies, and state-level initiatives that are already in being undertaken to address climate change, and consider future possibilities. Members of the Cape’s State legislative delegation will be on hand to serve as resources.
For more information about the climate summit please contact Keith Lewison at email@example.com.
Ocean Protection Advocacy Kids, Inc. (OPAK)
OPAK is a new 501(c)3 educational organization on Cape Cod that empowers youth to become curious ambassadors for the environment through the arts. They offer both in-school and afterschool enrichment programs, as well as summer day programs that highlight unique ocean themes like Plankton & Plastics. All of OPAK’s programs stress the need for youth to become lifelong environmental advocates by teaching them how to use their work to spark conservations about critical issues involving the ocean and their local ecosystems. OPAK will be running its summer 2017 day programs out of the Old Harwich Middle School. Each week of the program will have field trips, guest artists and scientists, plenty of STEAM activities and ocean art projects! For information please visit their website: www.opakedu.org or contact Jeffery Morgan, Executive Director at firstname.lastname@example.org.
National Organizations Established to Organize and Train Youth as Change Agents