The countdown clock on ses-climate.blogspot.com reads 2:16 and counting. Ten high school students from the School of Environmental Studies (SES) are on their way to Denmark to attend the 15^th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen.

“Sending students to Copenhagen is a perfect fit for the sort of teaching and learning we work to do at SES. Having students engaged in authentic learning experience in ‘extended campuses’ all around the world is central to the vision of SES,” says Craig Johnson, an SES science teacher.

“We believe students learn best through experience and active involvement, attending the biggest international climate conference in history certainly fits that bill.”

Upon return from COP15, the SES students will be required to share their new knowledge with the community through a community project or presentation. Be it a sustainable food banquet or a partnered project with one of the Swedish students they will meet in Copenhagen, Valley Natural Foods has partnered with the school to help complete the project.

“Valley Natural Foods has been a tremendous, long-term partner and support of SES programs for several years. Our collaboration on COP15 project is a logical fit,” says Craig Johnson.

We are excited to partner with the school as we have with other projects of theirs including the Will Steger Global Warming Expedition to Baffin Island or their first sustainable banquet.

“Last year we assisted a number of graduating seniors with their senior projects and it was a very rewarding experience for the co-op,” says Charli Mills, Marketing Communications Manager at Valley Natural Foods. “Two of the students gave us food for thought on how to get different cultures involved in the sustainable food movement.”

Being a community cooperative, it really enhances our work here at Valley Natural Foods to have a relationship and partnership with the students and school because we can learn a lot about the world around us from the real-life application projects that come from SES students.

What we find most exciting is that these youth from our community are amongst the youngest attending the conference in Copenhagen, which really reflects the quality of work that comes from the students and faculty at SES.

“Our co-op has an invested interest in the sustainable food system,” Charli says. “Certainly the kind of information the students will be exposed to in Copenhagen will expand our understanding of the future impact on sustainable food systems.”

We look forward to working with these students, following their journey, their experiences and learning about how the changes occurring around the world affect our health and ultimately our community.

Follow SES students with us on their blog!  http://ses-climate.blogspot.com/

This entry was posted on Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Healthy Updates Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.