Several years ago, the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors considered how to upgrade a walking path in a park. A Scout came to the podium. He advised us to make it as accessible as possible. He knew a child in a wheelchair whose family would benefit from a smoother path.
Over the last few years, the State College Area School District has distributed meals to the region’s families. Since the COVID shutdowns, food service administrators and staff have worked with volunteers, providing in-school and summer meals to people who struggle day-to-day. Kids can pay more attention in school and be secure, have a belly of fuel to get out and play, and parents can have peace of mind.
Across the world, the nation and here in Centre County, young people are becoming more and more anxious about the state of the climate. In their short lifetimes, heat, drought, fires, cyclones and peak storms have become hotter, deeper, bigger, faster and more violent. Schools from Paradise, California to Asheville, North Carolina to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have been shut down from fires, hurricanes and heat.
At the same time, the promise of renewable energy, electric vehicles, smarter buildings and regenerative landscapes have become clear choices to avoid greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. Whether it’s Greta Thunberg or Xiye Baustida, young leaders at colleges and universities or SCASD families who’ve supported the recent solar power purchase agreement, our youth are calling on leaders to act on climate change.
Recently, a Penn State engineering student simplified and refined an equation on wind turbine dynamics. She was the fourth student her adviser had challenged and the first to take it on. The update promises to optimize wind turbine performance that will increase power output from wind power. She has continued her research, studying airflows around helicopter rotors and seeing how it interacts with a ship’s air wake, hopefully leading to better simulations and increased safety.
Over the last year, parents and students have addressed the SCASD Board about health and well-being. In the wake of tragic deaths by suicide, they have called on us to be more vigilant to our kids’ mental health. They want us to feed, teach and protect children no matter their ability, their gender identity, their parents’ nation of origin, their faith or non-faith, the color of their skin or what environment—physical or virtual—they are learning in. They know that the educated mind is a connected mind and have vigorously defended the freedom of speech, freedom of expression and the freedom to read.
No matter their political or partisan affiliations—if they have them—these youth, parents, staff, teachers and volunteers stand in stark contrast to the Trump administration. By dismantling the Department of Education, Trump attacks children with disabilities. By eliminating the Local Food for Schools program, Trump attacks hungry kids and local farmers at the same time. By gutting staff at the Environmental Protection Agency and pulling out of common sense international agreements, Trump consigns America’s and the world’s children to a hotter and more violent world. By undermining funding at the National Institutes for Health and the National Science Foundation, Trump dims our kids’ and our own imaginations. Simply put, Donald Trump is opposed to the health, security and dignity of the American family.
Our kids and families are wise and trustworthy. They are fueled by love and the knowledge that together we create the mental and spiritual condition of our community. I’m listening to them.
Peter Buck is the former chair of the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors, a current member of the State College Area School District’s Board of Directors, and the director of Education at Penn State Sustainability. The opinions expressed here are his own. They do not express the views of any organization.
