Youth as essential problem-solvers of our futures

Abstract

Youth as essential problem-solvers of our futures Nancy Butler Songer, Associate Provost of STEM Education at the University of Utah, discusses the importance of supporting and including young people as part of environmental decision-making teams and key problem-solvers of our futures. The New York Times calls the environmental threat of the Great Salt Lake in the United States an “Environmental Nuclear Bomb.” Even as water levels continue to decline (e.g., the 2022 average lake level was the lowest on record; Great Salt Lake Strike Team, 2023), regional population and water consumption continue to grow. The result is not only a dying off of the lake’s brine shrimp that support a stable ecosystem but the development of poisonous dust plumes that threaten human health.