Columbia Climate School empowers young leaders in Vermont
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Every July since 2021, Columbia Climate School faculty and Putney Student Travel have hosted high school students from around the world at Vermont State University’s Castleton campus to study climate change.
The two-week program, which hosted 58 students this summer from countries including the United States, China, Thailand, and the U.K., combines learning from experts with hands-on fieldwork.
Laurel Zaima-Sheehy of the Columbia Climate School and Emma Kyzivat led the program, bringing in additional Climate School faculty to teach topics like climate science, disaster management, and international policy. Students engaged in activities such as simulating climate negotiations as if at a Conference of the Parties meeting and practicing communication with an AI bot designed to challenge climate science. They also visited the Vermont State House to speak with representatives about climate policy.
The program concluded with students developing and presenting individual Climate Action Projects (CAPs) designed to address needs in their own communities, ranging from composting initiatives to wildfire resiliency strategies. This year, Anna Panjwani, a program alumna, returned to share how her project had expanded since her initial participation.
Organizers emphasize the program’s success in building a network of young climate activists who continue to collaborate after the program ends, and a post-program evaluation showed students valued the cross-cultural collaboration and problem-solving skills they developed.
