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Description
Involves outreach programs to connect with citizens, youth, and community leaders to inspire action in our local communities
climate kids
Educating youth on climate change through
science, art, and storytelling
Climate Kids is a series of community level collaborative projects in the south coast eco-region that provide youth education on climate change through science activities, storytelling, and art. Each Climate Kids project brings together local artists, scientists, educators, and storytellers to engage students of all socioeconomic levels and inspire them to become environmental stewards.
Through partnerships with climate scientists and qualified educators, we encourage curiosity about the natural world while providing youth the tools necessary to make educated decisions about how to protect our planet in the future.
traveling trunk
Bring fun and interactive activities to your classroom by checking out one of our new Climate Kids Traveling Trunks!
story map
art + community
Art + community
The Alliance's Art and Community Initiative aims to bridge the gap between scientists and the community through art and artists. We see the arts as a valuable tool for communicating science to diverse audiences by cutting across cultures, ages, education levels, and socioeconomic status.
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art shows
Art Shows
Several times a year, we display climate-inspired pieces created by our affiliated artists and Climate Kids at locations across the south coast region. We use these art pieces to encourage community engagement and thought on the topic of climate change in a fun and interactive way.
Past, current and future art shows are posted on our Blog page, which you can access through the button below.
artists
Affiliated Artists
Arpita Choudhury:
Arpita illustrates and writes about science news and issues through her blog, "The Science of Illustration." Her blog posts and artwork gravitate towards conservation, climate change, genetics, evolution, and environmental science. She studied marine science at the University of Miami and environmental science at the University of Rhode Island. In a previous life, she was a fisheries geneticist and invertebrate molecular biologist. Most recently she dwelled in the world of wildlife policy with a focus on climate change and wildlife disease. Currently she is interested in using the visual arts as a tool for educating the general public about science.
Ashley Marie Mazanec:
Ashley Marie Mazanec is an activist and musician who works with an array of local Southern California groups to build the sustainability movement. A performer since early childhood and recording since 2003, her music evokes a more compassionate world by starting conversations about challenging topics in creative ways. Her creative work in eco entertainment has brought her to speak at festivals, universities, and for sustainable for-profit companies. Her event series -- Let's Talk About the Weather -- is a fusion of scientific, professional, and artistic flair meant to entertain and inspire.
Audrey Carver:
Art has a way of engaging the public in complex and controversial topics and Audrey has made a significant contribution to the work of the Climate Science Alliance. Her energy, enthusiasm, level of professionalism, and amazing gifts as an artist have made a substantial and lasting impression. Her murals, watercolors, and sketches will be displayed at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve where she interpreted climate scenarios into murals for the public. In addition, she worked hands on with students as part of the Climate Kids-Tribes program and created an amazing painting with students from Pala Band of Mission Indians to highlight their commitments to protecting the earth.
Biomimicry:
County of San Diego Park Rangers Michelle Levesque, Brian Ek, and Alex Wild discovered their shared passion for environmental music while performing at San Elijo Lagoon Ecological Reserve. Michelle has been writing and singing climate and nature-themed songs since 2007. However, the performances really took off in 2016 when Brian and Alex contributed their guitar and percussion skills and “Biomimicry” was formed. Biomimicry’s songs interpret biological and climate related concepts to the melodies of popular music, and support San Diego County Department of Parks and Recreation interpretive programs. Michelle and Brian performed for the National Association for Interpretation (NAI) 2016 Regional Workshop and Michelle is an NAI Certified Interpretive Trainer. Alex is an NAI Certified Interpretive Guide and is working toward his trainer certification.
Claudia Lyra:
After graduating in Brazil with a Bachelor Degree in Psychology and through understanding and experiencing the importance of movement and music in my life, I realized that a good education can be healing or prevent emotional weaknesses. A good education involves activities in which students explore their identities, creativity, social skills and are engaged in the subjects by the teachers who are able to bring authentic material to classrooms or educational events. With that in mind, after years of devotion to ballet, gymnastics, Capoeira and percussion, I began practicing and studying Traditional Rhythms, dances and stories from Brazil. With this experience, I acknowledge the teachings of traditions and wise humans dedicated to life with integrity, keeping their identity and their culture alive through artistic expressions. Through this endless learning process, I have been able to use my voice and all the blessings within movement and music skills to pass on these traditions and people's stories in order to inspire others, no matter the age.
Diane Burko: Diane Burko’s art focuses on monumental geological phenomena, which merges a vision that is panoramic, intimate and provocative. Focused on climate change at the intersection of art and science, her images of melting glaciers reflect research and visual data from scientists. Burko’s paintings and photography, over 100 exhibits thus far, bear witness to changes in the Polar regions, translating data including recessional lines and Landsat images into compelling imagery. These Polar images are in response to her travels around Svalbard, Greenland’s Jakobshavn, Iceland, glaciers in South Island, New Zealand and the Antarctica Peninsula.
Jack kelly: I was born and raised in London, England and grew up with a deep passion for both the ocean and art. I had my first encounter with SCUBA diving at the age of 10 and haven’t stopped diving since. I graduated in 2014 with a degree in BSc Marine Biology from Plymouth University and shortly after that was accepted onto a marine science internship program with the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA as well as with San Diego Coastkeeper. I’m now married and living in the Florida Keys, working in marine science and continuing to pursue my passion of ocean artwork.
Joan Green: Through her love of nature and her enthusiasm for reuse, Joan uses her art to explore the environmental edge that we are balancing on. She is deeply concerned with the problem of plastic pollution in our oceans, and through her art and teachings, is empowering children and their families to make more sustainable choices to respect themselves and our planet. Joan will be working in classrooms, at binational events, in green labs, and at Cabrillo National Monument this year in collaboration with the Climate Science Alliance's Climate Kids program.
Kira Carrillo Corser:
Kira was the first artist to work with the Climate Kids program in 2015 when she created beautiful paintings on silk that communicated students' committment to protecting the ocean. Kira also participated and shared her work at Art@CAF (California Adaptation Forum) in 2014. Kira is currently involved in Peace & Justice projects and a project linking the arts and businesses through video. Specifically, videos on ocean and planet changes due to climate change, plastic pollution and overfishing. During her work leading the Sea Changes Project, Kira brought together 7 climate scientists and 7 artists to co-create work realted to climate impacts on the ocean with support from the San Diego Visual Arts Network.
Milena Gavala:
Milena is a visual science communicator. A scientist by training but a creative by nature, Milena works with science organizations to translate complex & technical concepts into accessible and memorable visuals that create "aha" moments for non-scientific audiences. She also teaches workshops that help scientists organize, summarize, and visualize their own work in elegant and fun (but still scientifically accurate!) graphics.
St. Louis Artists
As part of a commitment to building a community of practice around climate adaptation, several special art related events were developed specifically for the National Adaptation Forum (NAF) and the California Adaptation Forum. In 2015,"Climate Art-Climate Action" was developed for NAF to highlight the work of several St. Louis based artists who are exploring themes related to climate change and environmental stewardship.
Libby Reuter
Betsy Litton
Libby Reuter
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Betsy Litton:
Art making can be both maddening and mystifying. It is an invitation for me to get out in the world to see and express my feelings. The tool I use most often is the camera. Many times I employ long, single exposures. The movement of the object and the camera create something with an uncertain outcome. I typically work on several projects at a time, moving between abstract and representational images. My work reflects my training as a painter and is very much an intuitive process.
Libby Reuter:
Since March 2011, the artists, Joshua Rowan and Libby Reuter, have been creating images that draw attention to places in the St. Louis region where the land is collecting the water, cleaning and conducting it to streams, and, ultimately, to the Missouri and finally the Mississippi River. These same rivers are the source of much of the region’s drinking water. Believing it is art’s role to make the invisible visible, and that there is no more important resource for the future than clean water, Reuter and Rowan set out to mark little known waterscapes where one can see the watershed at work or where the natural streams have been harmed or buried. After the photographs are made, the fragile cairns are removed from the landscape. By exhibiting these powerful images (identified by their street address and GIS locator) at community festivals, the artists aim for “watershedification” a broad public understanding of the watershed’s importance.
They currently have work in the exhibition at the Hunt Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis, in the Tributaries exhibit in Kansas City sponsored by the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, and the Minesota Marine Art Museum in Winona.
Jennifer Bradford:
Jennifer Bradford is a St. Louis native and a working artist with a focus on fine craft metal smithing and fiber arts. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Artscope St. Louis and partnered to create a special project on climate change and youth engagement specifically for the National Adaptation Forum. Climate Kids-St. Louis is a collaborative effort of Artscope-St. Louis and the Climate Kids project of the Climate Science Alliance. This collaborative effort focuses on supporting youth engagement on climate change and natural resource conservation through storytelling, art, and science. Come see the children’s’ art work on display in the Climate Kids Booth located in Sponsor and Exhibitor Space in the Midway Room.
Jenny Murphy:
Artist and social entrepreneur in St. Louis who founded Perennial, a local non-profit dedicated to creative reuse - or transforming items once considered trash into new functional and beautiful goods. Perennial empowers the community to view their personal creativity as an accessible tool to live resourcefully and sustainability.
Richard Reilly:
Richard Reilly's personal art practice takes place at the intersection of art, sustainability and construction. His work includes photography, collage and site based projects based on research, reading and time on the streets. Sunflower+ Project: STL is a socially engaged, vacant, urban land reutilization project that creates community engagement, creative peacemaking, an outdoor classroom, a biodiversity project and a stunning landscape bringing positive attention to the land until it is ready for redevelopment. It has been created by Don Koster of Washington University and Richard Reilly of the Earth Ways Center of the Missouri Botanical Garden as a winning entry in the Sustainable Land Lab Competition.
Ruth Wallen:
Ruth is a multi-media artist and writer whose work is dedicated to encouraging dialogue about ecological issues and social justice. After initial training and work experience in environmental science, she turned to art to address the values that inform environmental policy. She has been active in the development of the field of ecological art by creating many websites and outdoor interactive installations. Additionally, she has participated in innumerable solo and group exhibitions. Ruth has been on the faculty of the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College and a lecturer at University of California, San Diego for many years, and was a Fulbright Lecturer at the Autonomous University of Baja California, Tijuana.
Working group
The Innovative Community Engagement working group, known as the "Green Team", supports creative outreach programs including Climate Kids, Tribal events, and activities that bring together art and science. For example the Green Team helped make our biggest event, the Climate Science Area at the 2017 Balboa Park Earth Day, a huge success for the community reaching thousands of people.
working group
What we're up to:
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