Fall / Winter 2013 2014
Welcome to SeaTrust Institute. Having successfully piloted the Halcyon Adaptation Scenario(SM) project during a 5 month project in Zambia, launching AWARE, an educational program for community service through research in US and global high schools, filming climate migrants in India and working with interns and preparing for COP19 in Warsaw, Poland we are poised for a busy fall and winter season. Research continues; educational programs expand; and our policy platforms are richer and more varied.
Health as an indicator for climate change continues to be a focus for our work which brings together all aspects of framing environmental adaptation plans that can work for real people in communities around the world. Tied to these capacity building and consultative initiatives are the educational programs through which local and global science, economics, politics and social situtations are registered for us by interns and community service youth in concert with global science, and reflected back to their own communties through the voices of their own youth.
October 6th marks the launch in Chicago, Illinois of this fabulous project to engage high school students in experiential service learning that benefits their communities while adding information that is critical to our understanding of climate change issues, barriers and potential solutions at local levels that can impact other communities worldwide. Intern Elise Kittrell from the University of Missouri Science and Technology tells AWARE- Chicago students about the importance of water issues in their community and why what they do for community service with us has local and global importance. See http://seatrustinstitute.org/AWARE.html for more on what students are doing and how you can get your community involved. While ICLEI USA member cities Chicago, IL and Phoenix, AZ are the urban launch sites for AWARE, Florida students involved in water issues involving the Treasure Coast, Indian River Lagoon and the toxic algae in Lake Okeechobee demonstrate the breadth of climate change issues our AWARE youth can address through AWARE. Led by veteran educator Dr. Carolyn Stevenson, this program is fun, robust and important.
SeaTrust Institute's delegation for COP19 in Warsaw includes intern Lara Applegate who, together with migration researcher Abigail Blue lead the Walk of Resilience from the site of the UNFCCC negotiations to a showing of Abigail's film on climate migrants in India and Lara's presentation from her 5 months as an intern in Zambia in a remote area in the Lower Zambezi. As Head of Delegation, Dr. Lynn Wilson will be chairing our yearly official Side Event together with Peters Omoragbon representing our African partner organization Nurses Across the Borders. Peters has graciously allowed us to reside at NAB's booth during the first week of the conference. Also accompanying us this year are Educational Director for SeaTrust Institute Carolyn Stevenson and Technology Consultant Josh Smedsrud.
Research internships through local colleges and throughout the US and the world are changing this year to reflect the focus of current SeaTrust Institute research. Interns from countries represented by our intern project teams are being recruited to inform us about cultural relevance and issues in our research and international presentation. We are looking to add as many as 100 new research interns to the 2014 process.
New contributions to our publication series, local education projects and more keep us engaged at the local and global levels.. Please join us in our education, research and policy projects, either in person on online.
As always, we welcome your thoughts at seatrust@seatrustinstitute.org