CRAFT at the Youth Climate Leaders Academy

Three CRAFT students participated in and one CRAFT student helped facilitate the Youth Climate Leadership Academy (YCLA) at the Hulbert Outdoor Center last weekend. They were supported by WUHS staff Katrina Jimerson, Janis Boulbol, and Mike Loots and mentored by staff from the Vermont and New Hampshire Energy Education Programs (VEEP/NHEEP) to develop a school-based environmental action project. They attended a variety of leadership development and systems-thinking workshops and were able to interact with 100 students from all over VT and NH working on similar projects. One student shared these reflections about the experience:

“What motivated me to attend YCLA was when I first found out that it was about climate change and how to change something that needs to be fixed in our school. So I thought it seemed really cool to join and talk about what we could do to fix it… The most valuable skill I learned is how to speak nicely to the people that are working in the kitchen that I am going to speak with about the paper plates and how some people get metal forks but they throw them away not thinking that is something that we need and something that we can reuse and something that we do not want to get rid of…The best workshop for me was the one where we were learning about how to do an interview and that was very helpful for me so I would be able to do a better job at doing an interview if we have to do one for my school's project…For next year’s participants, I would say: Be prepared to do a lot of work! When I went there I thought oh yeah it's going to be fun and there is not going to be as much work as there is in a school day but I was wrong; there is a lot more! I’m not saying it is not fun because I really had fun and did not even want to leave the place.”