 Meeting members 128 constituted quorum. We're going to debate and we'll eventually come to vote. So I ask you to support this motion. I see no hands, am I missing one? Need the community these bring together. I was an elementary school teacher. I think we're hearing two separate issues. Public arts been an important part of this community. I urge you to vote yes on this proposal. Call the previous question. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed please say no. We'll have an electronic vote. I move to adjourn. We are adjourned. My name is Carol Gray. And welcome to Conversations About Town Meeting. Amherst Town Meeting was first started in March 19, 1759. It was Town Meeting governed the town for 259 years. And this is actually the first segment that we're filming after the vote that converted our governance from town meeting to a town council form of government. And this article that we're going to be talking about was actually the last article on the warrant for what could be the last town meeting ever in Amherst. There could be a fall town meeting, but we're not sure. But in any event, we're very happy to be here with the seventh grade class members who are part of an organization that brought a town meeting article on climate change and resolution that passed unanimously in town meeting. And I'm going to let the students introduce themselves. And then we're going to hear more about why they brought this resolution and what it was like to be part of our town government in action. So if you could please go one by one and introduce yourselves and also say what grade you're in and how old you are. I'm Lucy Smith. I'm in seventh grade, and I'm 13. I'm Tessa K. Wall. I'm in seventh grade, and I'm 13. I'm Jaden Case. I'm in seventh grade, and I'm 13. I'm Anna Gilsdorf. I'm in seventh grade, and I'm also 13. OK. Well, OK, great. Now, you were part of this organization called TJ Talk. And I'm going to let one of you explain what that is. Who was part of forming that name? Well, let's let, would you like to get started? Anna, where do we start that in? Were you part of the forming of the name? No, I think my friend Sam chose the name because he liked the way it sounded. And he liked the acronym provided by it, which is TJTOCCC. And Jaden, could you mention what does the acronym stand for? It stands for Team Jaguar Takes on Climate Change Committee. Great. So I'd like to hear from each of you about why you got involved with this and maybe what part of this whole process you were part of. I got involved with this because we were learning about it in social studies. And I realized that how big of a problem climate change was. And I worked on the slide, chose a lot. Terrific, great. And Tessa? Heard about it in social studies. And we were asked to do a project. I knew that I wanted to do something big. And I needed to make an impact. So why not go big, right? And what part of the petition process did you get involved in? I was sort of the secretary. I made the phone calls, took notes. OK, let's ask. What did you call? Town manager, town clerk, people like that, asking them questions in preparation for town meeting, usually. But what kinds of questions were there that you came up with? Mostly for town meeting. It was about where we would sit, exactly how it goes, when we would need to turn in the presentation by who's talking, things like that. I see. OK, great. And Jaden, what part of the process were you involved with? So the first thing that I did was I was in charge of making the brochure, which gives the rundown on what exactly our warrant article is about and how climate change affects Amherst. Great. So this brochure was very impressive. It was a, we're going to show it on air here. So we're going to show that right now. And could you talk about the different panels that you saw that you put together up to have a copy? But I'm sure you remember it. So maybe you could discuss each panel. How did you, did you come up with those ideas? And what's your favorite part of it? So I was working on it with two other people. And we thought, well, if you're sitting at town meeting, what do you want people to know about us? So we had a whole panel, who are we? It was how we're a group of seven grader at ARMS and what we're trying to do. And then we also have backs about climate change, which we thought were going to be, we hoped that would affect people's decisions to give them a couple facts about like how it's affecting the world. And then since this article is about the Paris Climate Agreement, we had what is the Paris Climate Agreement Panel? What is it? Maybe you could elaborate a little more about it. So in 2015, 190 nations, they decided that they had to take a stand on climate change. And they agreed that starting in 2020, they would try to have zero carbon emissions by the end of the mid-21st century. And then in 2017, President Trump pulled out. And I saw you picked a number of pictures. Well, how did you decide what pictures to put in the brochure? Well, we wanted powerful pictures that would really like make people reflect. So we have like your classic picture of like a polar bear on the melting, like ice caps and stuff. And then we have nations agreeing at the Paris Climate Agreement, like all holding hands. We have pictures of carbon emissions. And then we have a picture of some of the members of TJ Talk. And so obviously you all care a lot about climate change. What's one fact about climate change that concerns you personally? Like on a daily basis, I think about cars and how they're affecting climate change. That's something that affects me a lot. I always try to carpool and I take the school bus because I always think about how much I've driven that day and then try and like just multiply that by people in Amherst and then if you try and think about how many people are driving in Massachusetts than the United States and then the world when it's huge. Yeah, okay, great, thanks. And so Anna, how did you, what involvement did you have about this whole process? I started at TJ Talk and I started working with a few other people on researching like facts and finding like pictures and facts to really, yeah. And what are some of the facts that were really compelling to you? My family almost entirely lives on the seashore. And so one of my grandpa lives on an island. So it really was like really profound to me that since the ice caps were melting so rapidly and quickly that like some of the people in my family that I love a lot could be like their house could be destroyed and his home's already been destroyed like four times. It's a storm? Right, right, so one of the effects of climate change is much more, much stronger storms. And so have you been learning about that in school? Yeah, one can mention what have you been learning in terms of some of the effects of climate change? But like your body and islands like that where people have already started like migrating to different places where their homes won't be invaded by water coming up onto their island. Right, right. And some island countries in fact are going to be just eliminated. Yes, yes, you know, you were gonna say on other things about effects. Yeah, our body, once again, in like the 1970s I showed pictures of like the harbors and everyone looked so happy because they were like all getting into the harbors and like everything was nice and like there's a house and it was like a few and the beach was far away and now it shows like in 2017 or 2016 whenever the video was filmed it was like the water was inside of the boats. And now it's only about like the freshwater and how it's an island, they're surrounded by water but like the little freshwater reserve they have was just going away. This was getting infracted with salt water. So no freshwater means no one can live there eventually. Yes, and have you learned about how migration is a huge people having to flee their homes? Did you learn anything? You're nodding Lucy, did you learn anything about that? People having to leave their homes and just forever or temporarily but especially on Kira body they were talking about how people moving also caused problems because places were getting overpopulated and having poor sanitation because there weren't meant to be that many people living there. Right, yes so massive migration is going to be one effect of climate change and that's going to affect the whole world, yeah. So let's see, a lot of you mentioned I gave you a sheet with some questions and ideas and a lot of you mentioned that there were ways that climate change should matter to everyone. What are some of your thoughts on that? Anyone wanna jump in? Jaden, you look like you might be about to jump in, yeah. Why do you think climate change should matter to every child and adult? Right now climate change is kind of just affecting some people, not really close to the US, like there's been a little bit of it happening in Florida with flooding but right now, especially here, it's kind of everybody else's problem, it's always something that happens to someone else but that's just for a matter of time, like it's just to some people it's just happening in the islands or like down south or something but it's eventually gonna affect everybody and we've had a couple of warm winters where snowfall comes a little late and it's starting to affect us and give it a couple years and it will be affecting everybody so we have to anticipate that and we have to plan ahead. Yes, definitely. And I also wanted to ask you, Jean, about the town meeting process, what did you think about that? People were presenting and some people were up in the stands. Were you in the back watching the process? Yeah, I was in the back. Yeah, so tell me what it felt like to watch that. It felt so real because we had been spending months planning this and there was so much to do in the last week we were full of deadlines and everything was happening and when it just came down to the moment it was crazy because it was so real and it just occurred to me that it might not pass and it was scary because I hadn't been expecting, it was just something that seemed so far away and then all of a sudden it was there. Yeah, yeah, and what did it, were you all in the room in one capacity or another? So what did it, had you ever seen town meeting before? No, your first time there. And so Lucy, what did you think as you watched, what did you think of the whole process of seeing 200 some odd people, there's 240 town meeting members but they're usually not every single one present but it's a big group, what did you think of that? Well I was really kind of surprised because I don't really know what I expected but we're used to seeing all the kids in that auditorium and there was just a lot of adults and it was really organized but it was also kind of intimidating to have that organization and all these adults like looking at you and like listening. Right, right, right, so in fact this is your auditorium so you see it always with you and your classmates and yet here we were all in the room. What did the rest of you think of just that night? Well I was up in the front talking mostly about it and it was sort of scary I guess because like just everyone was looking at you and it's not usually people that you recognize because they're not really your classmates and so it was scary because you were thinking about making sure that you were reading the right words and talking clearly and loudly and you just wanted to make sure that it would pass. Yeah, we'll take a clip at this moment to look at a part of your presentation at town meeting. Great, and Anna and Jayden, what else did you think about how the process went when the article was presented? It was kind of scary because as a lot of people know like when you're doing a project and you work so hard and you're worried that there's going to be some tiny little thing that goes wrong and then the whole thing's going to unravel and even though there might have been like there's like one problem, Tessa and Ruan and Cameron kept on going strong through the thing, through the slideshow even when the clicker broke and that was like a slideshow broke and it was also kind of scary to see to have your work being projected in front of like 270, 200 odd people. Right, your slides were right up there. Yeah. And like you can see some stuff that you wrote and like some choices that you made and you were like, oh, that was good or oh no, that wasn't good, you should never do that again in your future reference. And what did you think about how it passed so fast unanimously, what were your reactions? Because it all came down to that and I knew that some people were concerned about how it would affect Amherst and what steps Amherst would have to take and so we knew that some people were wondering about that so we were wondering if that was going to be a problem or not. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. To the warrant meetings there are always people being like, well, how is this going to affect the taxpayers or how is this going to affect, how is this going to affect like regular people and I was worried that there are gonna be people who are going to ask those kinds of questions but then it just like when it passed unanimously everyone, I know that a lot of people near me just wanted to share but we remembered that we had to like respect the customs of town meeting and there was no cheering so. Right and so you mentioned too that, so there were precinct meetings or leading up to, there were like meetings that happened all around town, leading up to town meeting, how many of, raise your hand if you were part of attending a precinct meeting to discuss this. Okay, great and what was that like? Thank you, people. We knew what to expect and a couple of us went to more than one but it was still scary because we're like, first we have to handle this but after this is gonna be town meeting so like it was kind of a good practice and it helped us know what we had to put in the script because people's questions helped us know what they wanted to find out about our article and so I think it was helpful. How do you feel like maybe just a sentence from each of you, how do you think being part of this process will affect you later in life or even like later in your, I think I'll definitely for the rest of my life think about climate change more and think about how even though problems might not affect us now they will in the future. I think by being a part of this it's helped me learn that like everyone's part of this problem and you may think oh, we're just some seventh graders from Amherst, what difference is this gonna make? I'll remember that even like even a couple of people coming together to try to help this as a big impact towards a bigger movement of helping solve climate change. Yeah, right, you're part of, and young people can be part of a political process. You can make a difference and you did. Yeah, Jaden and Anna? Yeah, I think it gave me some experience about like more articles that also helped me learn about climate change. I think that it gave me experience like speaking in front of like large crowds so I ever have to do that again or like public speaking and I'll be able to do that because like the warrant articles and so are people that I didn't know as Tessa said so it gave me some strength in that. Yeah, yeah, I'm very curious to see what you all do later in life with your civic engagement. You did an excellent job. Thank you for being our first panel. Hello, we are here with our second panel from the seventh grade class. Young person to introduce themselves and say what part of the process they participated in. We're also happy to have Ms. Katerina Sherrick with us who was one of the teachers involved with the process and you can also introduce yourself and say what part of the process you were. My name is Leah and I attended precinct meetings, helped edit the script and helped with the final presentation to town meetings. And Leah, what's your full name? Leah Newburger. I'm Eleanor Jacoby and I did a lot of work editing the script and working on slide shows and stuff. I'm Cameron Grayley and I initially wrote the petition and also helped in precinct meetings. My full disclosure, I'm related to Cameron. In fact, he's my son and I drove him around and helped collect signatures to get this petition into town hall. Go ahead. Hi, I'm Ms. Katerina Sherrick. I am a student social studies intern. So I was there as a guide on the side throughout the whole process. I helped students edit, helped them practice their speeches, attended precinct meetings in town meeting with them. And really they were the stars of the show. I was just there to help. Wonderful, so let's talk about the, maybe chronologically what happened first and later. And so the first thing was drafting the petition. So Cameron, why don't you talk about what was it like to draft the petition and to collect signatures? And how did people respond when you were collecting signatures? This class, we saw an example of a petition and I said, well, I can do that. I found various facts about the Paris Climate Agreement as well as other climate change related facts. And I just put them onto paper and edited it a little bit. And then printed it out, made a few copies. Then I went around door to door in our neighborhood knocking. And then people were pretty positive about it. A lot of people weren't home, but the people I did see, none of them refused to sign it. I got a lot of signatures in that one. And it had to be done on a form from Town Hall. And how many signatures did you need to get total? We needed to get 10 signatures total. I think we ended up getting 12 or 13. Did anyone who signed ask questions and what did they ask? I don't think anybody really asked questions. A few people said, oh, this is a very good thing you're doing. And Ms. Sherrick, go ahead and what did, what part were you active in the very beginning? Project-based learning opportunity. After watching An Inconvenient Truth and the sequel by Al Gore, students were really excited. Well, they weren't excited that they watched the films. They wanted to do something about what they saw. So they wanted to take some sort of environmental action on the environment or climate change. So I designed an assessment where they could take any action they wanted and students wrote petitions. They created ad campaigns. Tried to develop workshops. Leah over here actually worked on an idea of developing a workshop to help people make solar powered phone chargers. Oh, I'm gonna ask you about that in a second. They did a lot of amazing work. And since students were interested in making petitions, we asked them to call Town Hall and see how that process worked. So students figured out the process on their own terms and on their own time. Great. So how many of you were part of things that weren't actually this petition article but were part of this whole unit on the environment? I guess you were, Leah. Hi, me and Skyler. We tried to create a solar powered phone charge workshop. We never really got through it because it was a lot of money. And we felt like we would have to raise money and then get, and we just thought it would just be a long process. And I wanted to join TJ Talk of the Cup, so. You know, you still learned, I guess, what goes into trying to do that other project. So even if it doesn't necessarily come to fruition, sounds like you learned skills that later, if you do something like that, you'll know what the process is. Other parts of the unit? I'm in a group. I made a slideshow that we were thinking of presenting to maybe the school or something. And it was. What was that all about? It was on climate change and also what Amherst can do to help it. And some of the slideshow actually ended up in the one we presented to Town Meeting, so. Terrific. Yeah. So what part of the slides in Town Meeting did you compose? I did a lot of editing the slides and the first slide, like the intro and, yeah. What was some of the content that you selected for slides? What mattered to you? Things that like Amherst could do, like I know my parents are always complaining about how there is no free recycling in Amherst, so light bulb went off in my brain that maybe we should try to work on that and see if Amherst can get free recycling that might encourage people to recycle more. Yeah, that's a great idea. How did you think you might go about that? I didn't do a lot of work on that in this project, but I think someday, like, I think it would be a good thing because recycling is good for the environment. Yeah. And Cameron, what facts did you think were most important that you included in the petition? Put in some stuff that was significant about what was happening to the earth, like the ice caps melting, sea levels rising. I also put in some stuff that other communities had done to stand by the pier's climate agreement. Yeah. What are some of the specifics that you remember then? Well, I think there are many cities across the United States who have chosen to stand by the pier's climate agreement and several in Massachusetts have as well. And also, many cities are also trying to actually work toward becoming 100% renewable energy or have zero carbon emissions. Was Burlington? Yeah, Burlington's Lamont. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Great. Now, so this whole process with the petition article started off with collecting signatures and then what did you do after you got signatures camera? Select board office, yeah. Well, then there were several deadlines. We had to make a flyer and we also made a brochure. So I'm gonna show the flyer that you made with a polar bear. It's shown now. Could you talk about... Chose to put the polar bear on because there are significantly impacted by climate change and the ice caps melting. How is that? What does the polar bear symbol mean? Well, many polar bears are dying because their home in the Arctic is melting gradually since the global temperature is rising. The ice caps are melting and they're having to swim miles and miles. Often they can't find anywhere else to live. They just keep swimming looking for food but a lot of them die. And so you mentioned there were other dates and what were some of the other dates and commitments that you all were part of, of town? Raise your hand if you were part of attending a precinct meeting, okay? And okay, great. So Lea, what was that like? It was definitely, it was not what I expected because I feel like as a kid, especially with town meeting and precinct meetings, they always want you to be on your best behavior and they're always worried about you like doing the wrong thing. But when I got there, it was like pretty casual. Like it wasn't as uptight as I expected. Could you describe it with... Because with town meeting not gonna be happening more, people won't necessarily know what a precinct meeting looks like, what did it look like? There is a big table and everyone had like binders and I think there's like different articles on every page and they were all numbered. So people would be like, let's talk about like 27 and people would all flip to 27. And everyone was really engaged. Yeah, that's cool. So basically everything that's talked about in town meeting is on something called a warrant and the warrant is all divided up by articles. And so the precinct meetings will go article, they don't necessarily cover all, in this case there were 39 articles. I didn't talk about everyone, but... And what happened when they came to your article? We wanted to go first because we didn't want to slip through the whole thing. So they moved you up. Yeah, it was, we had like a presentation or not really, we read from a script. And they seemed, there's no one really seen it as this amorous. We really didn't have any experiences with people who didn't want it to happen. What were some of the comments people made? I think part of them were surprised by it's nobody was really making comments, nobody had any questions. Okay, all right. And Eleanor, did you work on that script? Did you say? Yeah, I did a bit of script work. Well, I felt like facts about the climate change were important to include like the evidence. And I felt it was really important to like get across all our ideas about climate change. So give me an example of one fact that you thought was compelling and one idea. Well, we included like about the Paris climate agreement. We included facts about how US was like one of the three countries maybe that wasn't like part of it at the moment. So I think that was a really important fact that amorous can still stand by the agreement even though the US isn't part of it. All right, Cameron, you're nodding. What are the three countries? Do you recall? Well, this is two countries. Well, I mean, including the US three. But initially, Nicaragua and Syria didn't sign it. And now the US has withdrawn from it. We found this great map that had just all of the world blue except for Syria and Nicaragua. And then there was the US there. That was also red, I see. And Eleanor, you mentioned part of what you wanted to include in the script was things to do. What was one thing you thought people should do? Definitely support the agreement and the recycling thing and also like just do your part and like, you know, just small things like remembering not to litter and like doing renewable energy things like using solar panels on your house is a good idea. Okay, great. And Ms. Sherrick, how did this project relate to the other projects that were going on? What were some of the other projects? I understand solar panels. Team J and team L, team Lichenthrope, was working on making a green space at the school, I believe. They were inquiring about solar panels and making kind of an outdoor classroom space. So it seems like a lot of the seventh graders, not just on our team really cared about the environment and it was part of that environment unit. Great, great. So I'm wondering how, well, let's take the town meeting night, so were you all there? Yeah, okay, so some of you were watching and there were three of you presenting. What was it, let's take Leigh and Eleanor, what was it like to watch this town meeting process? Well, there was a lot of nervous energy in the room and it just felt, it was in the end, it was a really positive experience because our article got passed and I think we all felt really good about ourselves after it got passed. And also, I felt like the town meeting members were really supportive of us because they clapped for us when it got passed. And it's usually not a lot of people out there, so we felt really good about it. Yeah. That was terrific and for that. Leigh, what did you think? Well, again, we had to be really formal and a lot of people at town meeting like the adults were in and we were always gonna like don't like slam your chairs or don't clap and all the adults were sort of just doing it. I mean, well, we had to like get the respect which I thought was interesting as a kid. And also, I was doing the slide presentation and that was like malfunctioning but there was like someone on the panel who was like helping us. Yeah. So it's definitely community. From the audience, we didn't even know there was any malfunction, so you carried it off very well. So, and Cameron, you were one of the three presenters. What was that like? It was a great experience. We had a list of things we were going to say. We had the PowerPoint behind us. We alternated what we were gonna say. We talked about what the Paris Climate Agreement was. We talked about what happened to it. President Trump was drawing and then we talked about next steps Amherst could do. And then eventually when we were done, town meeting voted unanimously to pass our article. We're just gonna take a moment and show a clip of what were some of the next steps that you mentioned in town meeting. Mr. Scherker. What did you think about watching the town meeting process? First of all, I was immensely proud of all the students who were speaking. We're helping with the slideshow who talked to a news reporter and who were there to show support for their teammates. Everyone was very respectful and the whole process of town meeting was amazing for the students to watch. It gave them an idea of how a town meeting's government style works and exposes them to civic ideas which they can then carry forth and use for themselves growing up. And that is so important. I'd like to each give you each a moment to say a sentence about how this issue affects or the being civically engaged matters either in a different political issue. I know some of you are involved with other political involvement in later life. So take any one of those questions and if you could say a sentence about that. I think it's really important for kids to get involved. Like after all the gun control rallies and stuff that was happening, it's really kids who are pushing the movements now because it's like our generation is a really loud generation and we have things we wanna say and we're like telling people, like no, you can't do that to us. And were you involved with the gun control activism that happened on campus? What was that march? There was, I think over social media, we organized a walkout at the school but someone told Miss Bode and something happened and the whole school participated in it. Against violence in the schools, gun violence. Terrific, good job. And Elder, how do you think this could affect you in later life or other political issues that you've heard about? Yeah, a lot like Leah said, I think it's really important that our generation is able to deal with these situations because it is our future and I think our generation is really passionate about what happens. Great, and what do you think, in terms of what you learned with all this process, going to town meeting, preparing, what skills do you think you might use later on to be involved? Well, I think now I've gotten a lot more confidence and I now know a lot about how government works like town meeting and it was really cool to like experience all this stuff. Yeah, what was the, what was one single thing that you thought was most interesting that just, you were like, wow, I didn't know that. Most interesting, probably, I liked how us as teenagers could like have a say in something and I feel like it's really cool that we were able to get an article passed that now the whole town is following. Exactly, yeah. Awesome, Cameron, what did you, how is this going to affect you in later life? I think I'll definitely remember this, I'll be very proud that this happened. It was definitely an interesting experience and I really enjoyed going to town meeting. And what were, what's one of the most surprising things about the process that you encountered? Well, I was surprised that there was just so much, so many interesting opportunities to participate in this process, going to precinct meetings, making flyers, speaking at town meeting. It just was a very unique experience that I really enjoyed participating in. Yeah, and were you surprised that there were no questions and no one said anything against your article and there was just a quick unanimous vote? How did that feel? We were thinking it wasn't going to happen, we were also nervous, but we really didn't, we were preparing for people having questions and people opposing it. But I think we overthought it and Amherst is a really... It's always good to be prepared for all those questions. Ms. Sherrick, any last sentence? Forward, these students are going to have all of this knowledge about participating civically and about being environmentally friendly that they can spread wherever they go. Well, thank you, you did an awesome job and thanks for being part of this panel. Hello, we are here with a third panel from the TJ Talk Climate Action students. For people who are newly tuning into the program, could someone say what TJ Talk actually means? Ruan, you want to mention what it means? Well, TJ Talk is like the team Jaguar takes on climate change committee and we are basically a bunch of 12 and 13 year old and 7th graders who are trying to get something done about climate change. Thanks Ruan. And I'd like to just go down the row and everyone say what your full name is and what parts of this process did you participate in? What did you do? I'm Ruan Elphal and I helped edit the script and I talked at some of the, one of the precinct meetings and I talked at time meeting. And what script do you mean? The script that we were like things we were saying at time meeting. So anyone who's presenting an article at town meeting it's called Emotion. They move to pass this article and then they have five minutes to address it and so Ruan was part of the group of three that presented the resolution. So that was a great presentation and let's go on to Grace. What part did you play in this process? So my name's Grace Johnson. A role that I played was getting involved and getting organized and making sure that the slideshow and presenting at town meeting would be all done. Great and which slides did you find most interesting to work on? What was the content? One slide or a few slides that I liked seeing and working on were the ones about what you can do to solve climate change and just little things you can do about it. And what were some of the things that you could do to solve climate change? Some of the things were like plugging out electronics when you didn't need them, plugged in or shutting off the lights when you were in a Pacific room. Right, so reducing our use of energy because the more we use energy the more it contributes. Now how does that contribute to climate change? It contributes to climate change. It makes emissions, CO2 emissions rise and that is our atmosphere and it's not good for us to breathe either and it can lead to a lot of sickness. Okay, great. Okay, and Ariana, what was, could you introduce yourself and what was your role? My name is Ariana Texira-Molandez. I help edit the slideshows and part of the script. Okay, and which parts of the script or the slideshow did you find most compelling? It was the parts like the, you know, like hurricanes, the electricity. And how are hurricanes related to climate change? It hurts, well, it hurts the environment, like water, food. Yeah, yeah, Rowan, did you want to jump in? And hurricanes, like, they get more severe and they get like more often when the ocean water is like hotter. Right, so worldwide we're seeing a huge increase in really strong storms and hurricanes, sometimes hurricanes where they haven't had them before. So you're right, that's a really important point. And so Dr. LaRouche, could you introduce yourself and talk about, you actually, you have a unique role because you are looking not just at this particular action but many actions working on the environment. Could you talk a little bit about the whole thing? Sure, I can. So my name's Irene LaRouche. Thanks for talking with me today. I am the socialized teacher and it's been my privilege and honor to work with all of these students about the issues that they are interested in. Our unit began with an environmental focus in general looking at how humans impact the environment and how the environment impacts humans. And we looked at oil producing countries. We looked at climate change and as we were looking at climate change the students really felt compelled to move to take action and so we talked about what they wanted to do and created an assessment that allowed them to make plans to take action. And students did a variety of actions. Some of them wanted to do a poster campaign. Some students planned for a tree planting day in town. Couple of students were looking at trying to figure out how to create solar cell phone chargers and they wanted to actually present that to other students and teach them how to do it. So there was a variety and a lot of the study the students were really questioning why adults weren't taking action. And in particular they were dismayed by the fact that the United States was no longer part of the Paris climate agreement and that drove them to say, well is Amherst, what's Amherst doing? You know, what's Massachusetts doing? So looking at the fact that Massachusetts had decided to support the agreement, they wondered, okay, what about Amherst? So lots of different projects. A lot of them are still ongoing. There is another team that, team like and probe has a group of students who've presented to the school to look at solar panels for the middle school roof. So lots of different actions and just really following where our students need us to go. And that's my job was to support them. And I understand this interest in civic engagement is not new for you. And when we talked before you mentioned you were part of the eighth graders had brought a resolution to town meeting and you were part of the support of that. Could you mention what that was? Sure, I mean I think that the department, the Socialist department, the school in general and the district has an interest in civic engagement. And our school certainly has an interest in social justice as well. So for a number of years we've been teaching in our eighth grade, we've been teaching an inquiry unit where we look at the portrayal of Columbus. And also at times our students have looked at Jeffrey Amherst and these students will hopefully do that with me next year. And so again, really putting these concepts out there putting the information out there for students to digest and decide what they think about, what they believe, draw conclusions and then decide if they wanna take action. So for a number of years the unit on Columbus had happened in our district and in our school. One year under Matthew Venditti, one of the social justice teachers who's no longer in our school but was here working with us those students decided they wanted to move. Just like this year these students wanted to talk about climate change. So he was able to work with them. And again, it was really student driven to support them to bring their proposal to town meeting about Indigenous Peoples Day. And so they brought a successful petition article that legally changed the title of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in town meeting. That's a huge thing. And legally binding forever. So okay, so how did you all feel about this whole process? There were many stages. Some of you are active with what they call precinct meetings and meetings leading up to town meeting. Raise your hand if you were part of those meetings. Okay, Ruan was, yeah. What was that like Ruan being part of the precinct meetings? We just like went to multiple precinct meetings and talked about like climate change so we can like let people know before we actually went to the town meeting. Was it surprising today? How did the, so these precinct meetings have town meeting members there who are learning about the issues that come before town meeting? Did they ask you questions? Were they supportive? It was surprising like how many people actually supported us. I didn't think that there were adults out there who actually cared because. Lots of us. Exactly. So how could you tell these precinct meetings that they really cared? Everyone was like, oh they were asking us questions and they were actually engaged. They weren't like, oh here are some middle school kids and they actually cared about like what we have to say. And what were one or two of the questions? Do you remember? Oh, but one of them asked us like, I think one of them asked us, why did we care about it? And we told them like we cared because like we wanted all the new generations to have like the earth and have it like a couple generations back at it and not have it like dying out. Right, the planet needs to be a healthy planet for your generation and for the generations to come. Yeah, and let's talk about, oh in terms of you did slides too, right Grace? Is that, what's something you learned from the parts that you worked on? And I'll ask you the same thing, Ariana. What's something you learned from this process? One thing that I learned just not about learning about climate change but working together as one community, especially with the students. I think that we were all collaborative and we could understand everybody's different viewpoints, not just the students but how like different adults out there like their viewpoints from learning. One thing I did learn about the climate change thing was about the CO2 emissions, learning it in social studies, learning it in science and then putting it all into a slideshow and all of us working together, it really was like a big thing and I could understand it a lot better. Yeah, and what's something that you understood better? What specifics? I understood better about the CO2 emissions and about how they do affect us and how, which ways they do affect us. Like what are one of the effects? One effect is like you can get very sick from it or in some places you can get very sick because of the pollution that is made and we just wanted to spread that across because we think it's very important like Ruan was saying about future generations, we don't want them still living in this kind of hole or like ditch we're still living in. We want them to have a bright green future. Sure, great. Ariana, what did you learn from this? Like Puerto Rico, the hurricane, it happened in his heart and the food, like they need food, the water. Yeah. Shelter? In fact, Harper just did a study about the impact of that hurricane. In fact, over a thousand people were killed in that hurricane or as a result of the hurricane. Were you going to see something else? I mean, a bunch, like something else that we learned is that I think we all, most of us learned, at least I can say for myself, how to work better in bigger groups. Yeah. And how to get a bunch of people, how all the people in behind the scenes matter, not only the people who talked at town meeting. Let's talk about the town meeting, the night of town meeting. Raise your hand if you were in the room. So you were there in some capacity, some were watching, some were up front. Tell me one thing that either surprised you or you thought was really interesting or great about town meeting. Share one memory with me about town meeting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know no question. I feel like that we explained it pretty well. That's a tribute to you all. You did an awesome job. Yeah, great. And Grace, what about you? When I heard about how town meeting went, I was very surprised when Dr. LaRouche told us about how there were no questions and it was just a snap of finger and they passed it. And I was very surprised because a lot of adults who were voting, I was questioning why didn't they ask? I would have been surprised why didn't they ask questions because some people don't believe in climate change or some people don't want to help it, especially adults. And I was surprised. And then when I heard that it was just very quick, I was like, that must have been that it went very well. It went very smoothly and that the students that presented represented the school and the community very well. I think that's absolutely right, yeah. Ariana, what did you think about the process? One part that I was really surprised in was when the vote was unanimous, as Rowan said, and that, yeah, I was asking myself, like Grace said, that why didn't they ask questions, especially because students didn't, not like adults. Well, and in fact, you were respected like adults. In fact, you presented just as well as any adult would have. Dr. LaRouche, what about you? So I actually have a funny memory because I think I love middle school students. I believe in middle school students, so I've been teaching them for 20 years, but not everyone in society appreciates an adolescent. And so we really were talking about how can we represent our best selves? The students said, we should dress up. And so they spread the word to each other, okay, here's what you need to do and we should be early. And one of the things that we said was when you stand up, and the students told me this, I didn't realize this, but when you stand up, hold onto the seat because if you stand up too quickly, it'll flip and make a lot of noise. And so the students did it really well, but their parents, after they presented, a number of them stood up quickly and they all laughed quietly because the chairs all made a lot of noise. So they seem to do better than our parents did. But yeah, I mean, they just, it was beautiful to watch them supporting each other and being interviewed for the newspaper and then speaking in front of a room full of people with cameras and microphones, it all came together. And they're still taking action. They were just, these three were just planning, just designing a t-shirt while we were waiting our turn to be interviewed. Let them know they just come together, okay. And the collaboration was powerful and I think that they have really shown what you could take 30 people and actually work together with all these different strengths and it's really wonderful. And so how many people were, was it 30 that were actually involved with this whole process? It was 30. It's distributed over four different classes. And 32 in the end, we had a couple who joined us and we did a presentation for the school. Terrific. Terrific. Which was an expanded presentation that included a couple other folks. So yeah. That's great. Now this t-shirt, what's it gonna be? What's this, what's it gonna say? Well, it's still, we're still planning it, but we were thinking of like having something that says like Team Jaguar takes on climate change on the front with a picture of the earth and on the back having the Team Jaguar, one of the Team Jaguar logos things. Great. Great. Were part of the 32 people and the teachers having signing it or at least printed it around it. It's a great idea. Great. And then the t-shirt would be green. Awesome. Well that's just great. Now, so I'm curious to know, you all did such an excellent job and I heard from many people in town meeting just how articulate you were and how impressed they were with your presentation and every step of the way. You came to all the dates, you were always well prepared. How do you think this is gonna affect you later on? What skills did you take from this? Well I'll give you, you can answer any one of these questions. One is like, how would this affect you later? What other political issues do you see that you might apply some of these skills to? Or what would you like people watching Amherst Media to take from this petition that you did or other political actions you've been involved with? Any questions, but for a sentence or two? Well, we wanted them, the people who are watching Amherst Media right now to know that we're asking them to help us. They can help by doing the small things, like eating less meat, turning the heat down to degrees, turning the water and lights off when you're not using them and you can also plant a tree which helps a lot. So. Concrete things, yeah. One thing that I learned and I will take on for myself is that sometimes when you work in a big group, yes you might think at first, oh it's gonna be so frustrating, it's gonna be hard, but then once you know that everybody's in for one main thing and you're all gonna work together and you're collaborative, you know it's gonna work out, I think that's one thing I'll take on the road with me, I'll be able to do that. One thing that I would like to work on is women's rights and I would definitely take my experience with this and work on it. That's great to hear and what part of women's rights interest you the most? One thing that interests me the most about women's rights is just that sometimes we're not equal with men, especially we're not equal with pay or taking time off, usually they're always in charge, so taking a lead in something would be a great experience. That would be great, I see a career in women's rights ahead of you perhaps. Okay and Arianna, what did you learn from this? And 10 years from now, what do you think you're gonna remember about this? Like some of the, you know, who said what or exactly what you did, you might not remember in 10 or 20 years, but what's something, Arianna, you think even 20 years from now, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, I remember, what's something you'll remember from this whole process? Big town meeting. It was big, so describe to me what that felt like and what did that look like to you? A lot of adults and it was just us in the back and Rowan and Cameron, Tessa, they were all speaking. Yeah, yeah, so it felt a little intimidating. But in fact, you were part of the political process, even you got brought in because one of the speakers recognized you, so you all waved up in the stands. And well, we're gonna close up, but any final comment on, actually maybe I'll give you the final word, Dr. LaRose, since you made this all happen. Oh, well, so my final word is I just followed where the students took me. I don't actually think that it was me that made it happen. I just. That's absolutely right. And I stand corrected, right? It's a teacher who lets the students take the leadership. That's what I saw and you folks really did take the leadership and the project really was your own creation and so successful and the whole town learned from you and good luck and thank you. Thank you. Thank you.