nothin Kids In Strange Hats Share Green Tips | New Haven Independent

Kids In Strange Hats
Share Green Tips

Allan Appel Photo

It looked like Halloween, or St. Patrick’s Day in July. It was Action Day” for the kids of Solar Youth summer camp.

On a sun-drenched Tuesday afternoon on the Green, 10 kids of Team Coal (including Kenyatta Harris, Jr., pictured in the sparkly, Fred Astaire-ish top hat) donned unusual headgear and coiffures in order to get peoples’ attention. Their aim: to put into deeds what they’ve been learning about the environment.

They started work at 10:30 a.m. I was the 18th person they gently corralled, and then started teaching.

The lessons: Did you know that Connecticut gets 50 percent of its energy from coal? Asked Elijah Wright.

As Matthew Duhaney pointed his sun-yellow crown skyward, his friend Jason Adote held up a poster and said that we need to make more wind turbines and use less coal.

New Haven has only one wind turbine, another kid added, with a note of melancholy in his voice.

Another youngster urged me to use less electricity, and Kenyatta Harris reminded me that if I smoke (I don’t), I should stop because it kills. Jordan Wingate (in the short yellow wig, far left first photo) expanded on that theme: Pollution in general kills.

Solar Youth’s Executive Director Joanne Sciulli said there were two other teams circulating on the Green, also speaking with people on fossil fuel themes.

The taking of an action based on learning is part of what Sciulli described as the educational model Solar Youth follows: namely, kids explore, kids do, kids teach.”

The second team was educating the public about the BP oil spill and our use of oil. The third was circulating a petition asking for investments in renewable energy. Sciulli reported that the kids had collected over 300 signatures today alone.

The camp meets five days a week from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., in two groups. One is for 4- to 8‑year-olds; Team Coal is for kids aged 9 to 13. The environmental theme changes from year to year. This year’s is energy.

Next week is the last week of camp. The focus will be on a more formal education forum for campers’ parents, families, and friends.

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