K12 Schools for Climate Action: Aspen Ideas Climate

Listen to "Get on the Bus: Mobilizing K-12 School for Climate Action" Now

Commissioners from the Aspen Institute’s K12 Climate Action initiative joined the Aspen Ideas: Climate Festival in Miami Beach to discuss how the overlooked education sector can be mobilized for action on climate change. Aspen Ideas: Climate, part of the Aspen Ideas Festival, is a solutions-focused event designed for the public to interact, learn, and collaborate with engaged thinkers and doers whose ideas and actions are critical to address our collective future around the realities of a changing climate

In a panel titled “Get on the Bus: Mobilizing K12 Schools for Climate Action,” Vic Barrett, Carlos Curbelo, Dan Lashof, and Roberto Rodriguez described the urgency and need for schools to play a greater role in addressing climate change, as well as some concrete ways in which they can take action. Following the panel, commissioners, school leaders and more joined a K12 Climate Action Roundtable to further discuss the opportunities and barriers to unlock the power of education to advance climate action, solutions, and environmental justice. Finally, K12 Climate Action Commissioner Vic Barrett, Organizing Director at Power Shift, called on the education sector and young people to mobilize on climate change.

“I have never let go of my faith in other young people, in education, and in my peers and our ability to make a massive amount of difference when we work together,” said Vic Barrett.

Featured Speakers:

• Vic Barrett, Organizing Director, Power Shift

• Carlos Curbelo, Principal at Vocero

• Dan Lashof, Director of World Resources Institute,

• Roberto Rodriguez, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Education

• Moderated by Laura Schifter, Senior Fellow and K-12 Climate Action Lead