Climate Quest was a national educational network of programs that brought together high school students, college students and college instructors to comprehensively study the climate crisis. Additionally, each Climate Quest program documented and shared local impacts and solutions using video reporting to spur action in local communities.
Key Elements Connecting the Schools:
- Global warming curriculum (science, policy, technology) taught by a college instructor on a college campus to high school students entering their junior and senior years.
- Direct teaching involvement by college student mentors already actively involved in the burgeoning campus climate movement. Their role is to lead the ‘solutions’ part of the curriculum, sharing their work on campuses and playing an active role in the high school student’s field projects in their local communities.
- Field reporting through video, the voice connecting American youth.
- A national Internet site that creates a virtual youth center for comparing summer projects across America. On the site the videos of projects nationwide can be viewed and discussed.
- While these programs are tuition-based, Climate Quest provided financial and professional assistance where required for scholarships, video equipment and financial support for institutions who could document need.
Key Program Attributes:
- Interaction between college and high school students moves the instruction beyond a conventional science based curriculum on climate to a solution based approach to the issue. Community activism is encouraged, lessening the sense of powerlessness to make a difference.
- Video and high-end multimedia enliven the discussion of climate change, a subject whose complexity and seriousness often presents teaching challenges.
- Internet connectivity capitalized on communication lingua franca of today’s youth.
About organizers:
Robert Aglow
Robert (Bob) was the National Director of Climate Quest. He brings 27 years of broadcast and New Media experience to his passion for the climate crisis and his desire to prepare youth to be leaders today. Most recently, Bob was the executive producer for MSNBC.com and ABCNEWS.com. After working with communites in Sri Lanka following the 2005 tsunami, Bob left the media world to work on social and environmental issues.
Jessica Kellett
Jessica is coordinating the Climate Quest program at Sonoma State University and assisting the director in developing the program’s model curriculum. She has coordinated Cool Schools, the schools and youth program for the Climate Protection Campaign, since 2004. She began working on climate change solutions while attending Colby College in Maine.
