ANNA GAGLIANO
Special to The Leader
Last Friday, a Climate Teach-In was held by the Climate Education Initiative, or CEI, at Fredonia and led by their representative Julia Wilson. On this same day, millions of students all over the world participated in the Global Climate Strike.
Students, faculty, and even some community members all gathered together on the steps of Reed Library to learn more about the climate crisis.
“We weren’t really comfortable asking students to leave class,” Wilson said. “That would be an individual decision if they wanted to do that. And as an educational institution, we wanted to put it on as an educational event.”
Wilson and other faculty members encouraged participants to make signs, take informational pamphlets, ask questions and discuss the facts. This was all done to encourage participants to understand the science of climate change.
“This is a scientific matter and it’s been established as a scientific fact. People need to understand what’s happening.” Wilson said.
Along with the activities and handouts, the CEI also had a poster-board display with climate change facts, and a laptop playing speeches by young activist and inspiration for the Global Climate Strike, Greta Thunberg.
It was important to Wilson that young people, especially those studying to be educators, be aware of what is currently happening to the planet.
By learning the real truths of climate change, Wilson hopes that all young people present at the Teach-In will see the need for “science based climate education and climate action.”
The Climate Teach-In today was the first of education-based events that Wilson would like to host with the CEI in the future.
Any and all events will have the same goal as this one: “to be a resource for the community and a resource for the university,” and to represent “all the things we can and should be doing and are advocating for.”
Wilson hoped that the young minds in attendance received a lesson in trusting “science over politics,” and that even if one was excused from a class to be there, that they still learned something important.