Roles are reversed for some local, state and federal policy makers at Thursday’s Healthy Rivers Youth Water Summit in Carbondale.
Over 100 students from the Youth Water Leadership Program of Wild Rose Education will present solutions to different water issues and climate change impacts.
Sarah Johnson is the founder of Wild Rose Education, which puts on the yearly summit. She said topics range from food insecurity and water to why Aspen Mountain uses drinking water to make snow.
“To have so many different concerns, I think, is really telling. Young people are paying attention,” Johnson said. “Young people are hearing about things, and they’re curious and they want to figure out how to make it better.”
She said the ultimate goal of the summit is to show policy and decision makers that young people are concerned about climate change and water in Colorado and are ready to make a change.
“[I want] students to believe that they have the capacity to be able to contribute and participate in their communities around issues that they are truly concerned about,” Johnson said.
The annual summit focuses on water and issues surrounding it because Johnson said that's what connects everybody and everything.
“[The Healthy Rivers Youth Water Summit] is a place where we can all come together and have less division and more connection to each other,” Johnson said.