This past week, Youth at the Center (YATC) hosted its first in-person meeting for the year. We welcomed high school students from all five boroughs to the Teachers College campus, offering food, refreshments, and a chance to get to know other young people interested and invested in climate change.

The kick-off started off with an icebreaker and then went into a group reading activity. As a warm up and to open their imaginations, students read excerpts from “Things That Bend But Don’t Break” out loud, a solarpunk story by S.B. Divya in the anthology Cities of Light: A Collection of Solar Futures (2021). Inspired by the story, students were asked to think imaginatively about their own futures: “Imagine NYC, your borough, your neighborhood, maybe even just your block. Envision its shape, texture, its vibe, street culture. Envision the life it nourishes, people, animals, plants. What gives the city vitality? Why does it exist? Who lives there? What meanings does it have for you?”

Students brainstormed responses to these prompts as a segue to the next activity and then had an opportunity to take a break, mix and mingle, and engage with some of our posters and installments throughout the room, including a map designed by three of the students for the Conversations on Climate Storytelling Project.

For the next portion of the event, students took their vision from the previous exercise and were asked, “If you could do anything, or you had every resource imaginable available to you, how do you get to your perfect NYC / borough / neighborhood / block?” The responses to both prompts were shared and were written together to produce a collective re-imagining of New York through the eyes of current high school students. 

This year, YATC continues its work supporting the ongoing climate activism by high school students throughout New York. The program will also continue the Conversations on Climate Storytelling Project, where every high schooler in the city has an opportunity to share their personal story and relationship to the environment through writing, drawing, and other media. YATC is supported this year by three Zankel fellows- Maria Huertas-Trujillo, Sarah Lewis, and Mac Mann-Wood.

If you are a young New Yorker interested in learning more, participating in the storytelling project, or joining YATC, or you are a high school teacher or sustainability coordinator interested in bringing the project to your classroom, please email Raksha Vasudevan (rv2451@tc.columbia.edu). Also be sure to follow us on instagram (@youthatthecenter_).