"Last November, I was approached with a fantastic opportunity to inspire hope in Davis’s youth. Julia Levine, the poet laureate of the city of Davis, had noticed in her years as a child and family psychologist that an increasing number of young adults were struggling with the realities of climate change and failing to see a bright future for themselves. She conveyed to me, as well as other volunteers, that adolescents generally don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with big issues like climate change and have been exposed to so much negative information surrounding the topic that they often felt as if they were alone in their concern and helpless in their ability to do much about it.

Julia wanted to change that. She enlisted the help of other poets as well as experts in projects that are aimed to reduce the impact of climate change, like myself, to create Hope River. This project taught middle school aged children at DaVinci Charter about expressing themselves through poetry, as well as exposing them to projects like electric vehicle charging, tree planting, and composting to show kids that people are working on these problems. The students would then write poems about what they learned and read one of them into an app which would then allow anyone walking the bike path to the school to hear the poems read by the student-authors."

Read the full story at Environmental Policy and Management News