Students from the 2023 Green Mountains cohort celebrate the conclusion of an empowering program under a rainbow. Photo credit: Courtney White Last summer, the Columbia Climate School hosted the 2023 cohort of the Columbia Climate School in the Green Mountains program. The program, in partnership with Putney Student Travel, welcomed 65 students from around the world to Castleton, Vermont. The cohort represented 15 different states across the U.S., in addition to Puerto Rico, Canada, China, India and Turkey. The students participated in a two-week campus-based program to mobilize action, drive impact and effect change in response to our warming planet. Students engaged with faculty and staff from the Columbia Climate School and learned about cutting-edge research and innovations in action. Students also had a chance to meet, collaborate and build partnerships with like-minded peers and tap into their collective strengths to develop climate action plans.
To follow is a glimpse at what students experienced during the program, including course lessons, activities and excursions. Lucia Bragg from the National Center for Disaster Preparedness kicked off the program with a plenary session on climate change impacts. Students then broke into smaller learning groups for a “Science of Climate Change” primer taught by Laurel DiSera and Miriam Nielsen, Ph.D. students in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. The primer was intended to provide a background on the science of climate change to ensure all students had a solid foundational understanding of the subject before diving deeper into complex scientific concepts.
On the second day, students joined sessions on the science of climate change, led by DiSera, to take a deeper dive into climate warming, variability and feedback loops; and “Climate Communication and Conversation,” led by Josh DeVincenzo from the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Students learned about environmental science tools and strategies to assess the health of the ecosystem, including a biodiversity survey of the macroinvertebrates living in the stream (i.e., water bugs) as a proxy for water quality. The day concluded with a fireside chat with DiSera and Nielsen, who discussed their climate careers, pathways to a Ph.D. and advice they would give to their younger selves and aspiring climate experts.
Day 3 had a session, “Climate Modeling and Projections,” led by Nielsen, and “Preparedness Tools and Strategies” led by DeVincenzo, to facilitate an understanding of the emergency notification process for county governments during and after the remnants of a major “unnatural” disaster. The students also went on their first excursion to Stillwater Farm to learn about local, sustainable agriculture and farming practices. Students traveled to Burlington, Vermont, to learn about applied sustainability science from various practitioners. After spending the morning exploring downtown Burlington, the group went to Burlington Electric, the 100% renewable energy, municipal power company for the City of Burlington. The general manager, Darren Springer, presented on the company, power sources, power saving incentives and how they balance rising prices. The next stop was the ECO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain where students had a chance to explore the science and nature museum.
Led by Martin Dietrich Brauch from the Center for Sustainable Investment, students learned about “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement and Decarbonization Pathways,” and “Making, Measuring and Monitoring Progress,” sessions that focused on the policy approaches and technologies that can be employed to rapidly reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Students engaged in a field activity to collect data on the biodiversity, water chemistry and sediment composition of Lake Bomoseen to assess the ecosystem and its health.
From a methodology informed by the Tree Ring Lab at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, students collected tree cores from local specimens to analyze the tree rings as a proxy for past climatic conditions.
Day 8 started with a half-day session, “Climate Change Policy and Negotiations,” a role-playing game premised on an international climate summit. Student groups played the role of delegates representing a specific nation, negotiating bloc and interest groups. Everyone worked together to… (content cut off, consider rephrasing to reduce character count)
