Holding the Both/And of Goodbyes

Friends, it is with great sadness that I share that Kristen Poppleton, our Senior Director of Programs, will be leaving Climate Generation mid-December for a new professional adventure as Assistant Director of Minnesota Trout Unlimited. Kristen has played an essential role at Climate Generation over the past 14 years, growing and developing our programs and our reputation. She started here when it was the Will Steger Foundation, and has weathered many transitions, always staying grounded in integrity. Her understanding of and care for our COP program will be especially missed. And we wish her well in her new adventure, knowing that she will remain a friend of Climate Gen and available to us as we might need her. It has been an honor to work with her during the past year. I invited Kristen to share her parting thoughts:

In the summer of 2006, I spent a week at the School of Environmental Studies in Apple Valley, Minnesota participating in Climate Generation’s first Summer Institute for Climate Change Education (the organization was then known as Will Steger Foundation.) I was in graduate school at the University of Minnesota studying Conservation Biology, with a focus on climate change education. My friend Abby Fenton, then one of the three staff members, had invited me to join the Institute knowing my interest in climate change education. 

The week was spent with 50 other teachers learning about how climate change was impacting the Arctic region, hearing from Inuit leaders, and developing activities together. The staff were planning an expedition to Baffin Island in the Arctic to see impacts of climate change first hand and to talk to Inuit communities about their experience — we, the participants, were tasked with sharing this with our students.

Back then, climate change wasn’t “happening” so much in our backyards, and when you googled climate change education there was really not much to see resource-wise or jobs-wise. When I joined the team a few years later to work on the Minnesota’s Changing Climate curriculum resource, finding people and resources for this work was one of my first challenges.  

Doing climate work is a practice in partnership, innovation, patience, and radical optimism, and it requires people.

People who can help with all that stuff we typically think of as work, but also for fun, laughter, and friendship. As I ready myself for the next adventure beyond Climate Generation, my number one priority is to recognize and say thank you to all the amazing individuals and organizations I have had the privilege of working with over the years — to the PEOPLE that have made this work happen.

From the beginning the School of Environmental Studies (SES) in Apple Valley, Minnesota was a big partner in our work. The team there supported our Summer Institute the first time, as well as two more times over the years. Their students have been our interns, gone on climate-focused expeditions, provided us with valuable grounding in how to do an intentional and learning-focused trip to the international climate negotiations (COP), and now still support us with badging individuals for COP.

I don’t know when I discovered the Climate Literacy Network (CLEAN), but it was pretty early on. My calendar has had the standing Tuesday network meeting on it for almost 14 years. While I haven’t been able to attend as much recently, this network helped build the foundation of our work at Climate Generation today. Through conversations, shared presentations at AGU, NAAEE, NSTA; tweet chats; time spent as a Board co-chair; this group of folks has been leading the charge on climate change education across the country and has introduced me to so many of the partners we continue to work with today. I am especially grateful for the long time mentorship and deep friendship of Frank Niepold at NOAA’s Climate Office and Jen Kretser at the Wild Center.

The US ACE Coalition was a spin off from CLEAN, and it was through this coalition we started to really understand how our work at Climate Generation is grounded in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and is critical for accelerating climate action. So many great minds contributed to the Framework behind the Coalition and I learned so much from all of you!

I continue to be so excited about the Climate Literacy Certificate offered through Hamline University, a product of many years of dreaming with staff there. Our partnership with the Center for Global Environmental Education, and our staff teaching a Theories and Models of Climate Change Education course, and Global Climate Policy and Solutions during COP are a few of the rewarding moments of this partnership. 

I also, of course, found much joy and inspiration through working with colleagues at Climate Generation. I had the pleasure of being a part of some amazing teams over the years focused on local to international projects. Our Climate Minnesota: Local Stories, Community Solutions convening series took our team, along with climatologist Mark Seeley and Terry Webster from the Department of Commerce, across the state to 12 local communities. Stewarding the development of our book, Eyewitness, sharing it through a webinar series, and delivering it to every legislator in the state (during a global pandemic)  was a full team affair! 

Pulling off our Summer Institute for Climate Change Education every year takes a village, and that village has grown exponentially thanks to the leadership of some amazing education staff and a network of organizations that started locally with SES, Osprey Wilds, the Science Museum, Ft. Snelling State Park, the Institute on the Environment, and St. John’s University, and grew to partners across North America including NOAA’s Climate Office, the Wild Center, EcoRise, and Ten Strands.

I can’t imagine where Climate Generation would be without the passion, excitement, anger, persistence, and joy brought to this organization by high school youth over the years. It is young people that have been our moral compass, our edge-pusher, and our constant reminder that apathy is not a choice; that we must continue to do better than our best work. I have learned so much from them and I also have been privileged to co-work on legislation and coalitions and projects that give me hope. One of my greatest joys is leaving our organization knowing that we have a former high school YEA! member on our youth program staff today. 

Our ongoing organizational journey from equity to antiracism has been one of the most important, life-changing professional experiences I have had. I have been so humbled by the individuals I have had the chance to learn from, wrestle and cry with, have profound “a-has” with, and share collective humanity with. These learnings, this journey of seeing the world, is ongoing and it is a gift I bring with me. 

Finally, experiential learning can be a profound spark for action, and in 2015 when my colleague and I brought a group of 10 teachers to COP21 in Paris to launch our annual Window Into COP program, I was “sparked.” Over the years, the delegates we have been able to support to attend the UN climate negotiations have been some of our most passionate and sustained partners — citing the experience as an activation point for their personal climate action. Every year in planning COP, I am so fortified by the people we meet and work with to plan an educational and impactful program and experience at COP. I am so grateful to be able to end my time with Climate Generation supporting this program and our largest and most diverse delegation ever! 

Over the years, I think I may have taken on almost every role in the organization, at least for a short period, but I spent the majority of my time in programming. I was a part of stewarding its growth from a team of one to a team of ten program experts in youth, education, and community. I believe that an organization matures due to the support, passion, smarts, mistakes, and investment of many people. It’s working with colleagues at Climate Generation, and partners around the world, that has provided me with the sustained focus, inspiration, knowledge, and support to do this work. 

I look forward to watching Climate Generation continue to be a force in the climate movement — knowing that people are at the heart of this work!

It would mean a lot to hear from you if you have any memories of working together over the years! Consider adding a photo or written memory to this padlet with the password kpmemory.