Sussex Academy students tackle environmental issues at summit

A contingent of Sussex Academy students interested in exploring challenges and solutions to environmental issues participated in the Youth Environmental Summit recently.

More than 800 Delaware high school students attended the YES! event, sponsored by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The summit is designed to empower students to tackle climate change, clean water and environmental justice problems.

Students were able to choose from 21 presentations during breakout sessions and hear from a variety of experts and vendors throughout the day.

Sussex Academy students participating in the event belong to the school Green Team, have chosen the STEM pathway with a concentration in environmental science, or are simply interested in improving the environment, said teacher Stephanie Sherman.

“It’s always a fun event, and I love to talk to students about the connections that they make between what is presented at the summit and what we have discussed in class,” Sherman said. “To be in a room and at an event with over 800 students who all care about the environment and are invested in learning more about the latest issues is inspiring.”

After attending the event last year, senior Keenan Williams applied and was accepted to serve as a student leader this year by assisting with planning the summit and organizing workshops.

To spread the word among his peers, Keenan created and led a workshop for high school students called Farm to Table: How Food Can Heal our Environment as Well as our Bodies.

After working with Zach and Jenny Dittmar of Dittmar Farms in Felton, Keenan said he was impressed by their sustainable and regenerative farming practices, and wanted to share these methods.

By expanding such methods to a larger scale, Keenan said, they can help combat pollution. Further, the implementation of crop rotation and cover cropping help improve soil, which is of particular importance in an agrarian economy such as Sussex County, he said. To produce the workshop, Keenan also consulted with Historic Lewes Farmers Market Office Manager Becca Seeley.

“They do great work with the community food banks and pantries to get healthy foods to people who wouldn’t ordinarily get it,” Keenan said. “Lewes has a producer-only farmers market, where the vendors have to have grown what they sell. It’s authentic and more personal to know where your food comes from.”

Keenan, who plans to study environmental studies and policies with a focus on sustainable food systems, said he was especially pleased to see so many diverse students with different backgrounds, special interests, ages and ethnicities at the day-long event.

“There are so many different ways we can come together and tackle these issues,” he said.

The bus ride home conversation was lively, Sherman said, as students shared what they had learned, debated issues with friends and discussed the changes they can make at a personal level.

“I didn’t require or ask them to discuss these things,” she said. “It just occurred organically and it made me extremely proud to teach and to know them.”