Indiana high school students offer up ideas to combat climate change

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• John Yang:

  The mission to raise awareness and find solutions to the climate crisis extends to our nation's schools. That's where educators are hoping to empower students with knowledge and inspire them to come up with ways to ensure a better climate future.

  Lee Gaines from member station WFYI Indianapolis visited a classroom in Bloomington, Indiana this past spring where high school students were pitching their ideas to scientists.

• Lee Gaines, WFYI Indianapolis:

  It's mid-May and high school freshman Duane Murphy is pitching a big idea to climate scientist Ben Kravitz.

• Duane Murphy:

  There's going to be a tank and it's just going to be like a big giant metal tank. You fill it up with water and the tank's just going to heat up.

• Lee Gaines:

  I guess that hypothetical tank will feed a steam and solar powered car, but Dwayne says it could have some drawbacks.

• Duane Murphy:

  It's not really designed to take any damage at all, so you have to be really gentle with it usually.

• Lee Gaines:

  This conversation is part of a larger lesson about developing technologies that reduce planet heating pollution. Kirstin Milks is Daune's teacher at Bloomington High School South. She's been refining this lesson over the last three years with help from Ben Kravitz and other scientists at Indiana University.

• Kristin Milks, Science Teacher, Bloomington High School South:

  The fact is that climate change is the story of these young people's lives. It is already the story of where we live. It is the story of a state largely supported by agriculture. Climate change is here and now and students need to know not just the stuff about it that is challenging and difficult, but also they need to see how change can happen. They need to feel like they understand and can actually make a difference in shared future.

• Lee Gaines:

  Indiana recently approved new standards that now require high school students in Earth and Space Science to learn about human caused climate change. Many educators report they feel unprepared to teach climate change. A national survey in 2022 found that 56 percent of teachers only have the necessary resources some of the time or never.

• Kristin Milks:

  In a high water area.

• Lee Gaines:

  Milks and climate scientists at Indiana University developed a climate change lesson plan to help fill that gap.

• Ben Kravitz, Indiana University:

  Climate change is happening. We're not doing enough to stop it.

• Lee Gaines:

  Experts say the only permanent solution to climate change is to stop using fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas. Scientists already know technologies that could do this, like using batteries with solar and wind energy.

  But Kravitz says the world isn't moving fast enough. So he and other scientists are studying strategies to temporarily alter the Earth's climate to reduce the effects of climate change. It's known as climate engineering or geoengineering, and that's what students in Milks' classroom are learning about.

• Ben Kravitz:

  The people who are going to be voting on whether to do it or even leading the charge are sitting in high school classrooms right now. So if they don't know what this topic is, that's a real problem.

• Kristin Milks:

  So today is the day that you're going to really work on creating your engineering design.

• Lee Gaines:

  Milks says creativity is the core of this exercise. Students are encouraged to think of out of the box ideas to reduce planet warming pollution.

• Kristin Milks:

  So you're going to find places where people should specifically target planting trees. That's so cool.

• Lee Gaines:

  Junior Campbell Brown came up with an idea for a flying air filter that sucks up carbon dioxide, turns it into a harmless byproduct.

• Ben Kravitz:

  So you want to know something? It does work.

• Lee Gaines:

  Other ideas included artificial trees filled with water that could help fight wildfires, solar powered helicopters, and lots of ways to reflect light back into the atmosphere. Milks encouraged students to think about the potential downsides.

• Kristin Milks:

  What other challenges will you need to face do you think?

• Ben Kravitz:

  The neat thing about seeing all of these ideas come out of the classroom is it's not I can't do it's we can do it. Humans, when they get together, can do amazing things, and that's what gives me hope.

• Lee Gaines:

  Campbell, the junior who came up with the flying air filter idea, says she knew very little about climate change before this lesson.

• Campbell Browl, Bloomington High School:

  I really enjoyed this class because I have learned things, and those things have actually allowed me to, like, think about what I'm doing to our Earth. And I'm glad that it's actually become a requirement so that others can actually take steps and think about what they're doing as well.

• Lee Gaines:

  For PBS News Weekend, I'm Lee Gaines in Bloomington, Indiana.