WASHINGTON – A group of Iowa students will return home from Washington this week ready to ramp up their efforts to get the state to phase out coal dependency in favor of cleaner energy sources.
They were among more than 10,000 other high school and college students from across the nation who participated in a four-day summit to organize young people behind the clean energy movement.
Powershift 2011 brought together youth groups and environmental advocates last week in order to train students in planning statewide and regional campaigns for cleaner energy and other environmental concerns.
Meredith Place, a University of Iowa senior and Durant native, was one of the students selected to lead small group discussions about educating students in strategies to plan effective campaigns.
“We are teaching participants how to create key relationships on campus not only between other like-minded students, but also with the administration,” Place said. “We’re also teaching students the theory of change, which helps them to determine who the decision-makers are in their campaigns and helps them identify structure.”
Iowa City West high school junior Eleanor Marshall said the weekend empowered her to go home and get friends more involved in the clean energy movement. Marshall said high school students are often forgotten.
“I think we’re underrepresented and we have such a powerful voice –when we use it—because people don’t expect us to be speaking out about issues that we care about,” she said.
Rivka Fidel, 22, an activist and graduate student at Iowa State University, attended Powershift in hopes of gaining more ideas to convince administration to phase out the burning of coal and also embrace sustainability.
“We need more strength in our group and we need to build those leadership skills,” Fidel said. “We want to learn the tools we need to convince [the administration] to understand our side.”
Jessy Tolkan, 30, an Energy Action Coalition board member, said the conference symbolizes a younger generation speaking up.
“This conference is a pivotal moment and I think it’s a generation saying to President (Barack) Obama, ‘this is our country and this is our future,’” Tolkan said. “We’re are simply not going to back down until we get what we want and what we deserve.”