Teen Summer Camp Opportunity: The Science of Climate Change

Rising North Carolina high school juniors and seniors are eligible to apply for a FREE four-day program on the science of climate change sponsored by the RTP branch of the EPA.  It will take place the week of June 10-13, 2013, and will emphasize case studies and what people can do to mitigate their contribution to the problem.  The deadline for application is Friday, May 3, so your students had better apply soon if they are interested!

For more information, see the official announcement below:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Research Triangle Park, NC is offering a FREE weeklong Summer Enrichment Program to educate NC high school students about the science of climate change. Students will learn what climate change is, how it can affect their health and lifestyle, how they can take action to reduce the impact of climate change and ways in which to adapt to minimize the impacts. Program sessions are led by scientists, engineers, and policy makers from here at EPA, as well as by other experts. Hands-on experiences and interactive case studies are emphasized.

Interested students who are rising 11th and 12th graders in NC are eligible and encouraged to apply. Participation is limited to 25 students. The Program will be held June 10-13, 2013, from 9 am to 4 pm EST Monday-Thursday. The Program will be hosted at the EPA-RTP Campus. Participants must commit to attending the entire Program and provide their own transportation.

Application materials are at http://www.epa.gov/rtp/climate_change/climate_change.htm. Applications will be accepted on a space-available basis through May 3.

Contact: Kelly Witter Leovic
Director of STEM Outreach Sharing Science Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) in our Community U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Exposure Research Laboratory
Email: leovic.kelly@epa.gov, 
Phone: 919-541-7717, 
Fax: 919-541-3615 
Office Location: Room D320B EPA-RTP Main Campus 
Mailing Address: MD 305-01, U.S. EPA, RTP, NC 27711

Craft Coral Reef

I haven't been blogging as much recently because I've been so involved with the Healing Oceans Together (H2O) environmental education and awareness group that my son is helping to organize.  (Regular readers of this blog may remember the Great Sea Slug Beauty Contest that H2O ran earlier this year.) 

Now the group has moved on from raising awareness about sea slugs to encouraging people to help save the rapidly-disappearing coral reefs.  The first step in the process is that H2O is creating a community-based Craft Coral Reef to exhibit at ChambersArts, an art gallery in downtown Cary.  This artistic version of a coral reef, which will incorporate crochet and knitting, origami, beading, and other crafts, is supposed to remind people of the precious beauty of the coral reefs, educate them about the important role they play in our ocean ecology, and inspire them to take actions to help protect and preserve them.

We've been holding a series of FREE public workshops to get other people crocheting and crafting along with our group and contributing to the growing reef.  So far we've held three public workshops, and the results have been great.

Before launching the project, H2O crocheted some sample creations to show people:

But a few weeks later, after the second public workshop, the Craft Coral Reef had grown to this:

Beautiful--and exciting to see the progress!

For more information on this project, including some photos from the workshops we've held, check out the complete write-up on the Healing Oceans Together blog.  

You can follow that blog if you are really interested.  I'll also post some more photo updates to show you how our community Coral Reef grows.

Finally, next week we are launching another exciting initiative related to our "Save the Corals" campaign.  So stay tuned for that announcement!