Here is the December 14 Earth Matters, part 2 of Tom Litwin’s essay on his visit to the Bering Sea 10 years ago. He was part of a team of scientist studying the sea ice and its diverse life that underpins the food chains of both wildlife and human communities. This is what is at stake as sea ice declines due to global warming.
https://www.gazettenet.com/Earth-Matters-21954082

P.S. If you’re unable to access the Gazette page, wait until Monday or Tuesday and go to the Hitchcock Center website, www.hitchcockcenter.org, where you’ll find the article on the home page.

Hitchcock Center educators introduce engineering design curricula to children as young as 2nd grade through hands-on activities and experiences in our living building. The skills and thought processes they learn have life-long benefits, in addition to building curiosity about sustainabile building and biomimicry.

"What does urban planning have to do with education? Whether you’re a kid or an adult, I think the biggest challenge is often figuring out how to sift through information, deciding what information to use, and learning to make compromises. You have to understand that the best argument isn’t the loudest one. It has to be rational.

For example, we had a group of students decide to build a hotel at the top of the hill near the school, connected by a tram, because the location afforded excellent views. That’s good reasoning. But the next week, they realized that construction would be difficult, and decided to raze the hill! And I told them: “Wait, you had agreed last week that the hill was good for the hotel.” So it’s about teaching the students how to rationalize the process and to keep progressing from your original thinking to taking the next step.

On the sustainability front, we also have to start teaching this from a young age. A lot of students think putting their plastic bottles in the recycling bin is what sustainability means. But there’s a broader way to think about it, [such as], how do you think about transportation to reduce car use? These are very broad and complex topics, and we have to simplify them for the students to get across the message that to make the future of cities more sustainable, you really have to think about a lot of different factors."