do something cool for summer vacation

[cross-posted at Higher Edison]

You have two choices.

You are 15 or 16 or 17 years old. Summer is just getting started, but already the days are passing too quickly. On the far shore of this beautiful inland sea of unstructured time, someone is waiting in a September classroom with an assignment: Write an essay describing what you did for summer vacation. There you'll be, hands poised above the keyboard, reflecting. You have two choices. You can write the usual essay about the usual summer, or you can tell how you've begun to change the world.

In his usual big-thinking way, Clay Burell has conceived a new project with a global reach: a student-driven, Web 2.0-networked campaign to raise consciousness and foster advocacy about climate change issues, culminating in an Earth Day 2008 festival of web-streamed concerts by student bands in cities across the world. Clay explains it better as

a global "Concerts for Global Cooling 2008" Earth Day campaign, organized, promoted, and executed by students around the world--and web-hosted with the best student rock bands all on the same website for "streaming concerts," and student-produced digital works explaining global warming's causes, challenges, and solutions.

Clay describes the project's genesis and development in this series of posts:

Preface: The Seed--an Idea

Part 1: The Bud--a Concept

Part 2: The Blossom--a Project

Part 3: The Pollen--a Call

Part 4: The Honey--a Pedagogy

Part 5: The Bees--a Community

Part 6: The Queen Bee--a Real-World Model

Part 7: The Honey Collector--a Podcast

Part 8: New Poppies--a Webquarters

Part 9: Of Terapads and Windmills

Clay has set up a global cooling campaign HQ on Terapad called Teen Live Earth 08. Visit early and often for updates and more information. And the Seoul Chapter of the Global Cooling Collective (aka the Globally Cool Kids) have set up a private Ning group to coordinate their planning efforts. Students who are well into the planning stages in their own cities can request an invitation to jump aboard.

What/who are some touchpoints to get things started here in Minnesota? Will Steger's Global Warming 101 initiative is a can't-miss, integrating experiential and adventure learning, curriculum development around global warming, and policy advocacy. Their partnership with the School of Environmental Studies in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district has resulted in ongoing projects like this student-created globazine. The Global Warming 101 site also contains a clearinghouse of links to community action initiatives, climate education, youth groups taking climate action, and much more---including opportunity to submit an action story.

Spread the word and fire up those amps, people.

"Even though it's complicated We've got time to start again."

Teenage Fanclub, "Start Again" from Songs From Northern Britain