In search of solutions: The Teens for Climate Action Summit

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Climate change is a hot-button issue that has, does, and will continue to affect people of every age. Some in the next generation are already taking an interest in finding solutions and posing mitigation plans. This coming weekend the Anchorage Museum will foster those efforts along with the help of experts from the Anchorage Climate Action Plan when they host the Teens for Climate Action Summit.

“I inspired myself to kind of help conserve our environment because we’ve already started to see like winters are getting warmer, summers are getting warmer, the winters are shortening,” says 16-year-old Summer Powell.

The Teens for Climate Action Summit has been made possible by a grant from the Smithsonian. At the moment there are about 50 high school students signed up for the two-day event. Saturday from 1:00 p.m to 2:30 p.m. a trio of experts will run the students through 15-minute presentations about a specific area of climate concern here in the state of Alaska. Sunday those same teens will break into groups to brainstorm ideas for future virtual climate action projects to be executed this coming spring.

“This is sort of the kickoff event to support and inspire teens to be able to work and create these action plans this weekend but then we’ll be able to continue that relationship throughout the spring and we have some structures in place to help that,” says Molissa Udevitz an educator at the Anchorage Museum.

As for what these students will decide to focus on, or how they plan to implement their solutions, that’s all still up in the air.

“We kind of left it open for all the teens so if they want it can be a conservation project, or it could be a social media campaign that they want to do and anything in between there. So we’ve kind of left it open for the teens because we really want them to kind of come up with this on their own,” says Powell.

There is still room for any interested teens who want to sign up for this weekend’s event. The Teens for Climate Action Summit is open to high school students in the greater Anchorage area free of charge but you must register by 5 p.m. in order to reserve a spot.

Copyright 2021 KTUU. All rights reserved.