by Amanda Peterson, via Climate Access

School is back in session for high schools all across the country and the one thing on every student’s mind is, of course, climate change. OK, maybe in most schools who’s dating whom, getting into college and the elections are getting a bit more play.  But as we, the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE), start back up, we’re getting climate change to top of mind, too.

Since 2009, we’ve been working with high schoolers – with an assembly, student action programs and leadership trainings – in climate science and solutions. We’ve reached more than a million high schoolers and seen the first of this generation of leaders step up to tackle some issues that people twice their age are intimidated by.

But since I’ve started at ACE, I’ve heard the question: “Why high schoolers?” or “Can we really wait for high school students to become tomorrow’s leaders, given the window of opportunity on climate change?” more than I ever would have expected.

Sometimes, I cite statistics on how influential high schoolers are on their peers, their family decisions and their schools.

Sometimes, I show videos of students we’ve worked with speaking at Power Shift, ...

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