On Sunday, May 19, IHS hosted its third annual Climate Action Exposition. The exposition, organized by IHS students part of the Green Outdoor Adventure Team (GOAT) and Climate Action Working Group (CAWG) clubs, was a three-hour long event with live music, speeches from various students, staff members, and community members, and tables for local organizations. These included Sunrise Ithaca, the Cayuga Watershed Network, and Earthaca, among others. To make the event carbon-neutral, electricity at the exposition came from solar panels provided by librarian and advisor of CAWG and GOAT, Armin Heurich.
This Climate Action Exposition was the third that IHS students have organized at the high school. The first climate exposition took place in May of 2022, held indoors in the Welcome Center and music building. At that event, Kylie Golden-Appleton ’23, one of the organizers, told The Tattler that the event would hopefully be an opportunity for the community to connect personally with the climate justice movement.
That mission carried over into the second exposition, held in May of 2023, exactly one year ago. Featuring many of the same organizations such as Sunrise Ithaca and the Supporting Women, Impacting Society club, but also some newcomers who had not attended the previous exposition, it was held outdoors, which had been the goal for the first exposition but had not been able to happen due to rain. Eden Lewis ’23, one of the co-organizers of last year’s exposition, said to The Tattler in 2023 about the event, “We’re hoping to provide a space for people to understand the importance of achieving environmental justice through practical and ethical steps.”
This year’s Climate Action Expo carried forward many of the successes of past years while continuing to innovate. The Tattler spoke with Rosie Mead ’24, one of the organizers of this year’s event. Mead, who is part of GOAT, also helped organize the initial exposition in 2022. Mead explained that “the goal [of the event] is to educate people in the community about how they can be involved in climate action.” She added that there is a lot of information about climate change in the world, and that it can be difficult to find tangible ways to create impact. “We’re trying to highlight different ways that individual people can change what they’re doing in their lives to have a positive impact on the environment.” Mead stated that those interested in helping with the event next year should join GOAT or CAWG, but can also help out without being a part of the clubs.
The Tattler also spoke with some of the organizations present at the event, including Earthaca. According to Debaura Dahl, one of the founders of the organization, the organization started as the Center for Environmental Sustainability, but described that “we moved into the consciousness of Earthaca to look at the Earth as one planet, rather than divided nations.” When asked about the importance of students being involved in events like the Climate Action Exposition, Joaquin Lira, a librarian at IHS and a member of Earthaca, responded, “It’s your future, and you’ve inherited Mother Earth. It’s in bad shape.” But, Lira added, “There’s always hope, you can’t give up—got to think positive.”
Another organization present at the event was Sunrise Ithaca. Siobhan Hull, a member of the organization and senior at Cornell University, described the movement as a group of largely high school and college students in Ithaca who do advocacy on issues related to climate justice. Hull elaborated, “Mostly that consists of doing work with the Ithaca Green New Deal.” Ace Dufresne ’26, another member of Sunrise Ithaca and student at IHS, emphasized the importance of the Climate Action Exposition in helping students engage with local climate justice work. “Coming to events like these helps you see that there really is a community that is working on these things, and there’s ways to get involved and enact change, even if you’re young.”
At one table, Anurag Agrawal, a professor of environmental studies at Cornell University, discussed monarch butterflies and their relationship with the climate as well as their importance in ecosystems.
Zero Waste Ithaca was also among the organizations present at the event and aims to help reduce waste in Ithaca.. Recently, Zero Waste Ithaca has been involved in trying to move metal sporks into lunch spaces at schools in ICSD to reduce plastic waste from single-use utensils.
The Tattler also spoke with Armin Heurich, an IHS librarian who is the advisor for both GOAT and CAWG, and has been responsible for helping to make the expositions of the last three years possible. Heurich described to The Tattler that he has spent the last decade focusing his energy on understanding how to address the climate crisis. On the Climate Action Exposition in particular, Heurich stated, “I think we have evolved as an event to become more insistent and more demanding that our school district pays attention to its collective climate footprint and addresses it in meaningful ways.” Heurich also referenced the climate action plan that CAWG and GOAT have been pushing the Board of Education to adopt, a plan that hopes to reduce the district’s footprint and establish measurable goals. Heurich also emphasized the importance of avoiding “climate doomism”—the idea that the climate crisis is so far gone that nothing can be done to stop it. He stated, “I feel like I have a mission at the high school to help people switch modes of thinking, and move away from doomism to science-based optimism.”
With a wide variety of organizations, speakers, and musicians involved, IHS’s annual climate expositions have only continued to grow over the past three years, both in their reach and enthusiasm. CAWG and GOAT plan to continue organizing this climate exposition into the future, and have built robust relationships that they hope will help to propel IHS’s climate exposition to greater success.