A team from the Adirondacks has been selected to participate in the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Earth to Sky Academy this fall.
The Academy began in 2019 to train regional teams in climate science and communication techniques. Six teams will participate this November. Among them will be Team Adirondack, composed of representatives from the Wild Center, the Adirondack Research Consortium, the Adirondack Explorer and the Adirondack Watershed Institute at Paul Smith’s College.
Wild Center Director of Climate Initiatives Jen Kretser explained that the Earth to Academy focuses on teaching effective education and outreach regarding climate change.
“We’ll have access to some of the best climate scientists in the country, some of the best climate communicators in the country. But also have time to work as a team to craft the messaging, communication and education that we need to bring that back here to the Adirondacks. It’s kind of like a train the trainer. So we’ll be really looking at ways that we can bring people together to help share what we’ve learned and help them feel like they have the tools and resources they need here in the Adirondacks to talk about climate change.”
Adirondack Research Consortium is an education and outreach group that works to explain science to the average individual. Climate Strategy Advisor Sunita Halasz says while the topic of climate change has been discussed for years, experiencing it is very new.
“It’s really only very recently that we are experiencing this warmer and wetter and weirder weather and it’s kind of unsettling and scary. So it’s still a very new thing to be grappling with. So, oh my gosh yes we are totally going to be using everything that we learn in the Earth to Sky program so that we’re not making people more scared or so that we’re not causing people to feel like this is an overwhelming problem. We actually want to show people that there’s tons of ways in which we can all work together and solve this problem.”
Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute Education and Outreach Program Manager Tom Collins primarily works with communities to elevate clean water efforts in the Adirondacks.
He says they’ve been partnering on climate education initiatives for years.
“What we really want to step into is helping communities respond to climate impacts and the goal through the Earth to Sky Academy and through the training that we’ll receive through that academy is that we’ll get some more tools to communicate the challenges to communities and then also give them the tools to respond to some of those challenges.”
Collins says the five-day academy teaches how to break down science and better communicate it.
“At the heart of it, it’s local Adirondackers at our institutions or organizations who are able to go and learn from NASA scientists. It’s going to be a unique learning opportunity for us to get that directly from folks that are really involved in this world, and not even at a national level, really a global level.”
Kretzer says Team Adirondack is diverse because each works with different audiences.
“Like at the Wild Center we work with high school students. We work with the public through our exhibits. The Adirondack Explorer has a different kind of audience. The college, like with the Adirondack Watershed Institute how climate intersects with water, and also working with university students. There’s so many different kinds of audiences it’s really important for us to understand like what is that best messaging? Oftentimes when we think about climate change, we think about sort of the doom and gloom scenarios. We know that our winters are getting shorter. We can smell the wildfire smoke from the western fires. But how do we talk about that in a way that doesn’t scare people but it helps to give them the knowledge and tools they need to be prepared.”
The Earth to Sky Academy will be held in November. Team Adirondack is one of six regional teams including one from New York City.
