After the Ipswich River Annual Meeting, the student facilitators shared their thoughts on the evening and Climate Cafes as well as the work (and rewards) of protecting the Ipswich River.
“When Shari Melto of the Climate Cafe team asked us who would be willing to “take the lead” on IRWA’s annual meeting, I jumped at the chance. I have never been entirely comfortable with public speaking and leadership but, as I’m going into my senior year of high school as president of the Environmental Club, I realized that now is as good a time as any to expand my capabilities. I am so happy that I did. Although there were some stressful moments in the planning and execution of the night, I am very proud of my Climate Cafe team for their flexibility and improvisation using the Greenscapes. It was our first time using them and we all learned something new and interesting that will shape our daily lives. They are an incredible resource for students of any age to use. Not only was I enlightened on our very own Ipswich River, but I also got the chance to meet some incredible people, all of whom contribute to the maintenance and care of the Ipswich River Watershed. The Climate Cafe team has, quite honestly, changed my character and the person that I identify myself to be and participation in the annual meeting has contributed to that. Again, I’d like to thank IRWA for inviting our team to join in on the event – it was a night that gave me new confidence and inspired our entire team to help out our Ipswich River in more ways that we had previously been aware of.” – Margot
“Due to working with IRWA a few times prior to this event, I was very excited to be a part of another project. Working at the different stations and understanding the maps really opened my eyes to the community aspect of the Ipswich River. I sometimes forget that there is more to our surrounding towns than just the high school rivalries. The maps really helped me better understand what the Great Marsh and the Ipswich River community have in common. Talking to the IRWA members as well as the active participants really reminded me of why we fight for our environment. When asked to share river stories, I realized that my stories don’t differ from the person next to me. We have all fallen in the river, or seen turtles sunbathing during the summer. I think that it is easy to get caught up in the politics of why we want to preserve our environment when the reality is that we all love where we live and we want our children to experience the same moments along the river as we did. The Climate Cafe was very successful and I believe that it’s not only important to voice one’s opinion, but also listen. The Cafes promote active and engaging discussion, which I think is important, especially in such a tight-knit community, like the Ipswich River. I loved being apart of the IRWA Annual Meeting and I look forward to working with some of the participants in the future.” – Mei
“This year my peers and I were invited to host a Climate Cafe at the Annual Ipswich River Watershed Association meeting. We were delighted to have such an interactive and exciting group to work with and our conversations were as great as ever. We first joined the group for dinner in a beautiful botanical garden and then after their induction we lead them through various educational tools used for 5th graders. While Wayne was talking to the group, my peers and I got to have a conversation with senator Bruce Tarr and informed him on the work we do with Climate Cafes. He was blown away and we got a picture! My demonstration was how rain affects a landscape and I used my own knowledge and experience as well as inferring knowledge from the demonstration to have a conversation with my group of 5 adults. Then we led them into the gardens to sit and talk about our favorite memory along the river. My group shared stories of installing boat launches and important access points to the river. I was so glad to learn this because I never thought about a town without access to such important places and how much it affects everyone’s lives. Then we spoke about our stations and how important education at a young level is to students. Lastly, all of the student hosts stood up front and read an informative and inspirational story to the group which ended in a standing ovation! What a success. Thank you for everyone’s hard work and I am so glad to have had this opportunity.” – Bailey
“When I decided to participate in this event, I really didn’t know what to expect. It was rather disconcerting; I had been planning to go to the meeting as a member of IRWA. I had never been in a climate cafe or any similar event, and I was expecting it to be rather stressful. However, upon arrival, I felt so much better about the whole event. Everyone was so supportive, and much to my own surprise, I didn’t flounder – with explanation, my station made much more sense to me. And once the event started, everything flowed, thanks to a fabulous job on the part of the organizers. I never felt rushed, and we had enough time at the station to have an in-depth conversation about the topography of the watershed. In smaller discussion groups, the questions were thought provoking, and the group members were very engaged. Overall, this event was a total success both as a whole and for me as an individual, and definitely encouraged me to do similar events and climate cafes in the future!” -Marianna
“Running through the motions of life: wake up, school, tennis, homework, sleep becomes exhausting and boring when there is hardly an introduction to anything “new.” GOMI and working with Shari provides exactly that. Each time I see her and the other GOMI people my mood brightens immediately. It is a true and genuine opportunity to explore more on what you are truly interested in. Last Monday (Apr. 22) Shari texted me asking for my help for IRWA; having no previous knowledge of what this meant, I agreed. Upon arriving to the indoor jungle, we were greeted with scripts to teach adults (who probably knew more than us) experiments that can be used to teach 5th graders about various things. Such as what watersheds are and how they are used and abused, or the basics of the water cycle. It could be argued that 5th graders are not only the most impressionable age, but one of the most influential – telling their friends and family about what they learned. The experiment I had was confronted with was in hopes of describing septic vs municipal systems and how some items, like baby wipes, claim to be “flushable,” are not. The experiment used a jug of water and I showed my audience of 10 or so that toilet paper will properly disintegrate after shaking it simulating a flush. Whereas the baby wipe will remain in its form. Upon hosting the climate cafe, we (students) got to talk to a different assortment of adults about what we do at GOMI and got their take on how the event went. We had a closing message were we talked in front of 80-ish people. This is important because it helped me get over my fear of public speaking, and speaking with adults is also crucial to understanding rhetoric that is properly used when communicating with people you want to take you seriously.” – Simone
“My experience at the IRWA annual meeting was both educational for me in hearing others’ perspectives, as well as satisfying in knowing that I was teaching people new things through my station and getting them to think differently in discussions. Listening to everybody’s stories about the river made it even clearer as to how much of an impact our ecosystems really have on our lives and how much that the river has contributed to our experiences. Additionally, going to the IRWA meeting made me think differently about my own participation in environmental club and the climate cafes, as one of the members of my discussion group asked me what made me come to the meeting and why the environment is important to me. After contemplating his question for a moment, I realized that the reason that I’m involved and getting more involved in these conversations is to stimulate the growing minds of my own generation and to allow other generations to hear our voices and to help us through the climate crisis we’re currently in. I found the IRWA meeting to be very enlightening for everybody involved (students and attendees alike) and I really enjoyed attending it and opening up more talk about the watershed and environmental issues in general.” – Casey
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