Befriending Our Climate Monsters

Today we have the honour to chat with Lucas Olscamp, an educator and artistic director with a love for creative, performative storytelling. We talk about the Climate Action Leadership Diploma at Pearson College, and how immersive, hands-on learning helps students build resilience and empathy as they navigate a changing climate.

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Claire 0:00

Seeds of Hope is a podcast created on Lekwungen Territory, represented today by Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations. We feature special edition episodes at Xianu Territory and shared Musqueams, Quahomish, and Slay Latooth Land. As uninvited guests, we hold with immense gratitude and respect the privilege it is to share and cultivate a climate-conscious community here on what we colonially refer to as Vancouver Island. Hi, I'm your host, Claire Marshall, and welcome to the Seeds of Hope Climate Storytelling Podcast. I'm going around my community to chat with folks who are passionate about all things climate, from advocating for more sustainable environmental practices to enhancing well-being through arts-based activities. Today's episode, we're heading over to speak with Lucas Olscamp, educator and artistic director at Pearson College. Lucas dedicates their time to teaching youth how to foster empathy and encourage climate action through performing arts. I'll just start by saying, Lucas, could you introduce yourself?

Lucas 0:53

Yes, uh, my name is uh Lucas Olscamp. I use he, him, and they them pronouns. Uh I come from Abiguit, or so-called Prince Edward Island, on the east coast of Canada, uh, the traditional territory of the Mi'kmaq people. But very happy to welcome you here uh to Pearson College United World College campus, uh, which is on the traditional territory of the Sheana Beecher Bay First Nation, uh, and welcome you into the kind of kooky, weird, hybrid, entangled world of kind of climate ecology and art that I kind of find myself in. I'm a teacher, uh artist, I guess. I work a lot in, you know, self-proclaimed. Um but I work a lot in the kind of intersections of kind of art and ecology. Um, my role here uh on the campus is really to be first I started teaching in the theater department and visual arts. Uh and recently with the founding of our uh climate action leadership diploma, which I know we'll come back to, uh I started kind of uh embarking on that program to develop my own curriculum around um kind of how to foster empathy through non-traditional forms of narrative uh that are not just solely in the realms of science and kind of engineering and mathematics around climate and how students can find different ways that speak to them that can speak to others like them in the world to make them feel more empathetically and form kinship around um community in the human and non-human world.

Claire 2:19

That is such a beautiful introduction.

Lucas 2:21

Wow.

Claire 2:22

Weave that one in blown me away. That is so wonderful. So I'm I'm very curious. And we've also had the pleasure and joy of speaking with another uh, well, with several people that work in this kind of like intersection of arts and climate. And I just am wondering if that's something that you found naturally, or is it kind of like an area where you were like, I am really passionate about arts and theater, performance, um, whether that's also like student. I think you mentioned a little bit of visual arts as well. Like, did you find it easy to combine climate and like ecology and environmental aspects into what like your interest and passion were was in theater? Or is that something you kind of were like, I need to make this space?

Lucas 3:03

I think it's a great, I think it's a little bit of both. I think I would say, I would say I find it, I don't know if I find it easy, but I definitely find it, I found it really fascinating to deal with I've I feel like the sides of ecology and art that were often um well, let me break it this way. And that is that I've watched so much, if you had to look up, you know, like climate and theater or climate and art, for a long time I would argue that not trying to undermine the incredible work of so many artists out there, but there was something about it that I argued that often was quite shallow. There was, you know, often these kind of plays about save the whales, you know, and like artworks about like drowning oceans, and like and I, and there was like something where I just found like the narrative was caught in the kind of what was most iconic and what was most kind of like archetypal around the stories of climate. And where I found my interest in it was that I thought there were so many things I was already passionate about that I believe were entangled in the work of climate and ecology that are not gonna be the first like pop-up Google search when you're kind of looking for climate and art. So for me, like, you know, growing up, I was obsessed with monstrosity. Like I love monsters, and I just find monsters deeply fascinating. And I think before I ever connected them to climate, monsters were woven throughout all of my work, and especially as a young theater artist. And I was obsessed with, you know, monsters as icons of queer community, as icons of the other, um, as kind of signifiers. And then I really it was only when I was like diving deeper and deeper into this that I realized that like often monsters were also embodiments of the natural world. Often they were, in so many stories, I found them to be these kind of natural forces, often hybrid forces with kind of the non-human world that were like speaking back to humans or fighting back against the kind of destructive forces, like Godzilla as a metaphor for like nuclear war kind of things, and then Frankenstein as a fear of the science and how it's affecting the natural order. And and I think it was those stories that I was following first that were about the monster and the other that slowly I have found myself weaving into things like concepts of kinship, things like concept of community, concepts of like entanglement. And I think from that's where I started to realize, like, oh, maybe this is like a climate, a way for students and young people to also can they have their other kind of gateways and ways to access climate storytelling and climate education that are quote unquote the kind of alien doors or other doors that are not just, I don't know, yes, save the whales, but yeah, green biology. Yeah, exactly. Like the kind of classic graph chart of you know, inconvenient truth of like going off of, you know, this is the carbon footprint. Um and I just don't think people were actually art has that way of drawing empathy into people where I feel like those other fields do have that power, but I think they struggle to.

Claire 5:54

Would you say that like monsters were like you were so you weren't afraid of them?

Lucas 5:58

No, I never. I think I've definitely been it was interesting knowing that I should be afraid of them. I feel like you know, I had constantly had that idea that they are other, you know what I mean? They're supposed to be so, but they're but they're so um supposed to be repulsive and yet they're so attractive in the sense that they kind of draw you in. And I found myself. Yeah, like I found it's like you can't look away from a car crash. Like you know, you can't like, it's this kind of like these like these monsters demand attention. Like they demand to be seen, they demand to be heard, they demand to be faced, and I think, and I think often when I ask my students, you know, I think that it's less about the monster being quote unquote evil or bad, it has it has purpose, it has intention. You know, there's very few monsters that exist in narratives that don't have an intention or a desire, and often if you if you in the ones you would argue that say that have they don't have that, I think are the most under misunderstood. And I found that I just really drew to their stories because I found I said, you know, if if I can see myself in that, then there's also a great power in that because monsters have the power to break binaries, they have the power to break traditional narratives, they have the power to also like completely consume humanity. And I think that that was something that was um overwhelmingly um yeah, like attractive in a sense that I really was drawn into it, and I found that a lot of my early stories in um that I was working in theater, especially as a young director and playwright, really focused on the monsters. I think particularly the minotaur was something that was a creature that would like haunted a lot of my works for a while, and my full undergrad thesis was just like, you know, that the icon of the minotaur was just super omnipresent throughout the show, and I find myself still today often it's rare that my show doesn't have a monster in some sense, even if it's an unseen or seen force, but I feel like often I'm still trying to live in kinship with the kind of with the alien, with the other, with the kind of queer entangled creature.

Claire 7:52

And would you find that climate played a role in that from early on too? Or is that something that you've kind of seen? Because looking back now, I'm really identifying like movies that I've watched. Even like I used to have like a big I went through a big horror movie phase when I was like very early stages of my of my queerness. I would like put that back to grade six, seven, and eight. I was big into horror movies, they helped me feel alive, and I'm I'm realizing now, yeah, that there is that kind of theme of like the environment and climate. Like one horror movie in particular, I can't think of the name, but like all of the town is consumed like by this water that gets like this everyone gets this illness that they all start killing. It's called the crazies, actually. Oh yeah, it's a really wild one. Um, and it's all because like a human overpopulation is like taking uh space and not allowing like biodiversity to thrive. And so this biodiversity like created this illness that like kill like makes people kill each other. So anyway, so yeah, like did you start making that natural connection to kind of like climate and those kind of stories like in undergrad or like even before that, or was that always kind of part of what you were doing, or is that a recent development?

Lucas 8:59

I honestly don't think it was that conscious when I was young. I think I was very conscious, um, I think monstrosity on a very surface level for when I was young. I think I was then very conscious of the kind of connection to identity, I think, around like kind of queerness um in my undergrad. And I think it was not until I did my master's at York, and it was there, I think, that I was I did technically the degree is you know an MFA in design, but it's almost, you know, they kind of in many ways it's an MFA in sustainable design or kind of looking at sustainable, what are more ecological awareness towards kind of design practices. And I remember even there, um I kind of struggled a lot with like um this stereotype of just like, oh well, ecological design is just the same show, but just doing shows with like less harmful materials and stuff. And one of the examples that was given to me was um plastic bags. They were like, Yeah, like you know, like plastic and plastic materials, like plastic bags, the same way we're trying to rid plastic bags from our kind of uh economy that's like in theater, how can we rid ourselves of these plastic materials? And I don't know what I was in, it was just like in a troublemaking kind of mode. But I I found myself that there was such um, I don't know, kind of like the other, the idea that you would just like push the evil away, push this thing away, like the idea that plastic is this horrible thing that's destroying our environment. And the way to face that is just to remove it from the narrative, to just completely bring it out. Versus, I kind of retaliated back in my work, really to say, I think that it's actually we should face that monster. I said, So what if I said instead of getting rid of plastic bags? What if my show is just plastic? Like, what if it's just all plastic? And what does it mean to face that kind of thing that we have made? Like the same way we've made monsters, we've made plastic, we've made these, we've weighed these toxins that have destroyed our earth. And I think it was there that the thread started entangling and started kind of weaving, and I realized that, oh, this is similar. I think that we are trying to villainize a thing we birthed. You know, that climate change is something that's beyond us and greater than us, but it is of is of us. And so I think when I realized that and in my work, I think that's when things got entangled, things got kind of woven together, and then quickly I think that's carried with me ever since where I realize the kind of ecological you don't need to do a climate show for you to be talking about ecology or kind of things because I think that like we all live in climate, and so it's just funny that I feel like people have tried to put things in genres like a topic, versus to say, like, you know, any show can be about climate, it doesn't have to be a show that's about the whales. I think in some ways, you know, just a show about family dynamics that are grappling with anxiety of change can be a climate show. I think in so many ways, a queer family dealing with kind of otherness can be a climate production. And so that's that's one thing to say and to believe. It's very different to try and teach that to young people. And so I think that's where I'm living in that space right now, is trying to say, like, how can I not you know bring that out in young people where it doesn't have to be just in theater or monsters? But I say, like, what is your story and what is the story in connection to your shared environment, and how how can we explore that? What form can that take?

Claire 12:08

Did you feel like academia was like a safe space for these kind of conversations? And that I don't know, I think it could go either way, and probably depends on where you where you're studying, but I know that for some universities, like those kind of bigger conversations, and like when you're like, oh, actually, like you're teaching this, not all wrong, but like you're not considering this really big other part, and like you're also like kind of perpetuating the problem. Yeah, yeah. Did that feel like a like an easy conversation to have? I guess.

Lucas 12:38

Again, I don't know if it was easy. I think it was definitely a good conversation to have. I found it very like, you know, challenging for folks to um and also I was sitting, I was very naive too. Like I was going into it, like, I don't know what this is, but I just know there's something to shake this up. And I think I was not the first and have not been the last, you know, to realize there's so many are artists out there that are shaking that space up, that really are again, that's where I argue like there's so many folks who have been doing artworks about climate and artworks that are um dealing with this that have not been capital T or you know, like theater, capital C climate theater, you know, kind of shows. And so I think that academia was a good space, it felt like a good space to do it, but it often I argue was a good space to do it on paper. And then when you try to do it in practice, people had a lot more issue with it. They said, like, oh, that's all great and dandy for uh thesis, but like you can't just what does that mean on the larger scale? What does that mean for the kind of like economy of theater? And that's where I started to feel less and less like I wanted to be in the kind of economy side of theater, and that's kind of where producing large-scale shows and kind of grappling with that kind of um complexity of how to produce those shows in ecological ways, and instead kind of shifted myself more towards education because I found that's where I found theater most potent for me and most powerful for me as a tool to help young people grapple with questions rather than find the easy answers and solutions.

Claire 13:58

And so after you mentioned doing your MFA, is that how you um ended up coming here to where we are, where we are today?

Lucas 14:06

Um yeah, I was um so after during my MFA, I was very um very privileged very to be able to form my own company called Tooth and Fang. So it was this kind of arts um company that was really devoted to exploring wildness as a concept, and so our shows had no coherent through line other than wildness, I would say, to some level. And it was that the kind of I was working with Tooth and Fang, traveling around, I was in Costa Rica, and then I was just gonna supposed to come back for three months to volunteer at the college and yeah, January 2020, and then the world quickly collapsed uh kind of soon months into that, and it was just I think the stars were aligned and everything was here, and I was offered the opportunity um to take on teaching here full-time, and it's just been an incredible gift. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't wish teaching the any teaching anything, especially teaching the arts and theater in climate, like running, you know, rehearsals with laptops as like scene partners and trying to give emotional cue work with people with masks on, um, was some of the greatest challenges I faced. But I think from that, incredible work was coming out. I think in the some of the shows we've been doing at the college the last few years, I think have incredibly dealt with kind of yeah, that entanglement of empathy and deep stories, not just the shallow ones, um, and that deal with climate in ways that are more nuanced, I think. Yeah.

Claire 15:24

That's so special. I want to see performance. I want to. I want to. Um where do you see them advertised?

Lucas 15:31

Or like where how do how do you advertise so I don't do I should, I mean, I don't do any public advertising. Uh I think it's it's it's interesting. I mean, our student body alone fills the theater.

Claire 15:40

So it's quite if it's international, like I guess you wouldn't have a lot of families that come to these.

Lucas 15:46

Well, maybe, but no, sometimes yeah, sometimes we if they're local, but yeah, most of our um our productions, I am anti-technology when it comes to shows. Uh like I love sound, I love lights, but sometimes a projector, but I'm anti-mics, I'm anti-cameras, and so um and so the students have this desire to hide the camera. Shut them all down. Um but I like I always tell my students like you can film it, but I will not be responsible. And I always joke with them like the theater gods hate technology, and that we have to like pay our kind of owns to them. And so I think, and so the students do record it. I've never watched a recorded version of the shows, but there is recorded versions of kind of out there and stuff. Um but we often just do one show, like one night. We do a performance night, and it's kind of in that way, it's kind of there's something that I love about theater that is so different from other art forms like film and photography, where it's just like it just lives in the ephemera. It just lives, it's in that moment and then it's gone. It just ceases to exist. And I think that I just, yeah, I've tried so many other art forms, but I think theater does something. I think theater, this is, you know, hot take. I think it's like it's just one of the most like like one of the most, it is, I think, the most human of the arts. I think it's just because it's just existing. It's just you are, yes, it can be prescripted, it doesn't have to be, but I think you are just a human body existing in live time in front of someone. I think music is very similar, I think, in that ways, but anything that is live performance is just does something to the soul that is so different. Not to say it's any more powerful, I think, than things like film and other art forms, but it just it's so it's just it's so different.

Claire 17:19

It's a moment you're living in, I feel like versus I mean I also I really love film. I love theater too. I've been a film nerd for a long time, but I never really did like performed in film, but I have done theater and like it's just a it's like a little I guess it depends on how close you are, but I can't for me at least in high school, it was a very much like a like a little family for a while, like the unit, like a family unit that you were kind of living in, and that was like all you cared about for two to three months, and then goodbye.

Lucas 17:48

Which I think is like weird on a small scale, but on a larger, repeated scale, an act of climate resilience. Like I think theater and or film production, like I think the art the form of collaborative art making is a forming of community, of temporary community. And I think it's so there's sometimes maybe I mean I I'm not a scientist, but maybe there are like you know, research, you know, groups that come together, they'd be share. I don't know if they share that same sense of family in kind of sense, but I think that like sometimes that's that's what's that's the kind of even the let like the you know the underbelly of the underbelly in talking about like you can have a show that's talking about climate or a show that's nuancing around climate, or just looking at the act of making theater as a form of forming community. And if communities are more resilient, if folks feel like they can be more vulnerable, if they feel like they are being witnessed and being seen and being heard, I think that those folks, I argue, are often more resilient going out into community and arguably more resilient to face things like climate disaster when they feel like what happens in those moments of response where community is tested or forced upon people, you know, in response to like flooding or earthquakes. And I think what happens when you have groups of people that have already had temporary community, and I think I don't know, that that's my like I'd hope, and I think that I think there's people that are doing it even more that I think that are really out in that are not just in an insular sense that we're on c on campus but are out in the community. But I hope that our students from all around the world are going home and carrying a little bit of that, I don't know, theater kid. I hope so, absolutely.

Claire 19:17

There if there's like one thing I remember learning from theater, it's just like and I think it's something I miss in my years like since being involved in theater, is just like how much you've learned to how much you have to learn to trust other people that you're working with, like whether it's like your tech crew or like your actual um and not co-workers, but co co-leads, or how do you how do you say people you're performing uh alongside like that act of being like they'll get me through to the next scene? That's something I definitely don't have in my at like my older soon-to-be 30s.

Lucas 19:54

Like seeking that pardon? Seeking that now, or did you find yourself finding like wanting that out?

Claire 19:59

Like now, yeah. I feel like in my older 20s, um, I've just started like, and especially with COVID and how crazy the world can be, is yeah just is.

Lucas 20:10

Yeah, is always was and always will be.

Claire 20:12

I I've lost a bit of this like trust that the people I'm performing alongside are showing up, if that makes sense. Not like my direct friends or family, co-workers, like I do see people showing up, but just like I have a lot more trust issues, I feel like, than I used to have whenever I did feel like really uh I mean, I think that's also growing up a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whenever I I was doing more performing arts and like involved in community theater and things like that.

Lucas 20:44

I just well also like that sense of like radical vulnerability that like you know, people make fun of in young theater kids, I think, but it's so vital and so rare. I think the older and older you get. I find that it's harder to find people who will just throw themselves at embarrassment. You know, and I think that's something I teach my kids all the time is like you have to be embarrassed. Like they're like, what is the like you know, they some young kids believe that the key to confidence is just like that they will one day be unafraid completely, you know, on stage. And I was like, that's not a reality, or like a rare reality, maybe for some. I said, like, but I think like instead, I think it's it's knowing that you're deeply embarrassed and being in that and sitting inside of that. And I think that that is something that all people should have as a skill. I think if you are being okay with you know, not knowing something, being okay with doing something wrong, um, not knowing if you're doing it right, but also it's one thing to bear witness to that on your like self-reflection every day, but it's very different with like an audience of folks who you have to bear who are watching. But honestly, like all community is audience. And so I think that in any days, every action we take, there's people watching. And I think that some people who have a lot of power in the kind of structures and politics of community could do with more embarrassment and to grapple with that in order to understand. And that yeah, we need more theater kids in politics. I don't know.

Claire 22:04

Yeah. That's really true. I think the world would be a bit of a a better place if we had that.

Lucas 22:10

A kookier place. Conferences would be a very different musical style entrance.

Claire 22:17

I'd be a big fan of that. It feels like a like a kookier place for the worse right now. I wanted to be that but for for the better. Um and so yeah, I'm I'm all in for having more theater kids and arts kids voting them in office and getting people in local.

Lucas 22:32

I mean, politics is already acting, so it's just like another stuff.

Claire 22:36

That is so true. That is so true.

Lucas 22:38

The theater of yeah, the theater is already there.

Claire 22:40

Yeah, yeah. That's really like even you saying that, I'm like, I need to go audition for community theater now because I am very adverse to embarrassment. And I'm also that, like, I'm still that kid that's like, when will I not be afraid? Even like podcasting. I'm like, that was scary.

Lucas 22:55

This is like a being being like there's an audience bearing witness.

Claire 23:00

Exactly. That feels like at least like every single time for me, like there's a point where I just I don't I want to say like like it for in good way, disassociate in terms of like my body's just like you just have to do it, just go do what you gotta do. But like, yeah, in in a like a good way, because I know that like that's really like I'm protecting myself and I'm like you can get through that which makes you afraid. There's a really good quote that's like everything that you I saw this on a graphic design YouTuber that I really loved and was like, everything that you're afraid of is like in a cave or like in in the dark in a cave. I don't know, it sounded better way better in the actual quote. But it goes back to monsters, it's like those like you know, things that you're afraid of or just like is where the answer kind of like lies.

Lucas 23:44

Totally, yeah, yeah.

Claire 23:45

So I really love that. I feel very drawn to that. Okay, so I'm very curious just to rein it back in a little bit. Pull us back in. Um, but it's pulling us back into your work here in school. So you're very involved with theater, um, getting youth to perform, be vulnerable, which is such a key part of like development and something we're often like not asked, I guess, to do like as youth. Like I it's really it's something that can be really hard in home lives, like express that vulnerability. So it's really important to do that through various art forms like theater. And I'm just curious how here at this school, um, how does like climate play into it? I know you mentioned that you have this really exciting like program here, right?

Lucas 24:24

The Climate Youth Action Climate Action Leadership Diploma.

Claire 24:29

Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Lucas 24:31

Yeah, so um we're very privileged, you know, uh a few years ago for a group of really dedicated folks to kind of come together to look at, you know, I wouldn't say, you know, not the ultra form um the term alternative education or alternative pathways, but we call it a parallel pathway. The idea that we could have, you know, here at Pearson College, we run the International Baccalaureate Program. So it's an international kind of um education body that um has many different um programs, but one of the ones that they run is the diploma program. So that is what all of our students up until the formation of the CALD were taking, and that is like a very diverse, wide spectrum, you know, that is to say you're taking, you know, your first language, a second language, a mathematics, a science, a human science, maybe a lective, you're taking an art, um, and you're doing other kind of qualifications. And so this uh parallel pathway that we were able to kind of um co-create or kind of adapt is called the career program from the International Baccalaureate. And we were able to form called, yeah, this kind of Climate Action Leadership Diploma, which takes a select number of students from our college and then really allows them to still take uh opportunity to take courses from the diploma program, but then half of their entire curriculum is devoted to climate education. So they spend um half of their time here at the college in multiple different courses, um, really kind of grappling with climate in both scientific and community ways, and cultural ways and political ways and economic ways. Uh, and then I for one year, was it one year? Yeah, one year this ran when I was not a part of the program yet, but I was deeply watching, you know, very intently from this move aside. Um and I was just teaching theater and teaching visual art, and it was really um I approached um the director at the time, Emily Coolidge, who's an incredible, just like pioneer of kind of um innovative forms of education, and I really just said, you know, I want to be in this. Like, what can I do? But I and she said, Well, we have this part of the program, you know, like we don't really have like a select area for you to do the arts, but we have this thing called personal and professional skills. It has some qualifiers and a structure and a kind of set somewhat curriculum, but they said, But what are personal and professional skills for students if they want to pursue a career in climate action? And so, because it's a career program, like the focus of that we were developing is like half of our course load to be devoted to forming a career in climate action and leadership. So our program is instead of well, we do evaluate in many different ways, but one of the core ways we evaluate our students is through uh core competencies. So it's this competency model where they have three different levels and kind of a whole set of competencies, and we kind of look at things like critical self-location, things like conflict management, um, and are able to facilitation, uh, scientific literacy. I love this form of the idea. And what's interesting for our competency model is that this is that we evaluate and the students self-evaluate. So they really are advocating themselves for what level they they are at these. So they come into like emergent and like make their way uh kind of like all the way up to more kind of like critically present, kind of engaging um enacting of these competencies and skills. And so um I had the great privilege of developing my own curriculum where they said, like, how could I take the personal professional skills curriculum and really adapt it to something that would work for me? So I formed, we love an acronym. So we um and so I formed like the NEST, which stands for narrative ecology, self-hood, and thinking or teaching. And the NEST was meant to be kind of, yeah, like as it sounds, like an incubator space and a space for students to really engage in, okay, like yes, I could just like you know, lead a class and like how to like have these basic skills and competencies, but instead, how do I make it project-based? So they engage in a series of incredibly multidisciplinary projects that really get them to grapple with um climate and ecology and empathy and and kinship in different modes that are actually very few of them are theater. Like they're actually, but many of them, you know, one of the projects takes on looking at kind of observational poetry and kind of um field guide kind of creation. Another looks at object curation and the idea of how we kind of collect and build um narratives, um, looking at like comparative things to like the Voyager Records series, which is like an archive of images, and we kind of critique it and look at like what how do we tell the narrative of humanity and our relationship to the world. And then we have things like architecture of resilience, things like ethics of documentary and um other kind of of course monsters. We have a monsters and uh monsters of climate and mask making. And in each of these projects, they really um are faced with yeah, having to use a mode of communication and a mode of storytelling that is arguably just so out of the norm, quote unquote, the tradition of like, let me show you a graph, let me show you the data, let me show you what was happening, which is one way to argue climate narratives and sometimes very powerfully, but how can we complicate that? And so I think that what what I find is students are yeah, grappling with that, sitting with that, and you know, and it ends up becoming this like multimodal kind of art curation experiential class that we do, mostly on the land. Yeah. Has there any been anything that surprised you the most from this work or like any moment where you felt even like the most proud of kind of seeing what young people or youth are making when it comes to their thoughts on like climate and yeah, I think I mean I know we'll go we'll come back, we'll come back full circle to monsters, but I think that there's something about the monster making project where I, for the core of it, the project just is quite simply asked them to develop their own ecological monster of some form um and giving it kind of purpose connected to their own local communities and and why that that monster should not be something only to be feared, but something that is a teacher. So that monster has something to show, has something to say, has something to teach. And they have to then create that monster, but then create the narrative of that monster that they want to share, and then they have to create in a mask. So they form these kind of like very the medium of that mask is up to them, but then we gather around uh by fire at night. Uh and last year we had the great like serendipitous privilege of the power shutting off on campus that night. And there was just this something like beautifully serendipitous of just like very ancient of like the whole campus went dark. And it was just pitch black, and we had this roaring fire, and a group of these students, you know, representing, I think amongst them, you know, like nine different countries, um, that are sitting around a fire, each with these beautifully crafted handmade masks, and just stepping up, you know, in front of each other and just storytelling and sharing these kind of stories. And I think I've just been so captivated by the simple evocative nature of that. Like the idea that it was just kids around a fire, and yet from that is just incredible nuance, incredible empathy, incredible complexity around students talking to historical cultural narratives, start talking to like economic kind of like infrastructures as kind of like monstrous creatures and like and how they're just dealing with their own passions and communities and folklore and weaving that in as a way to share with others. And then I don't know, something and also bringing back the oral storytelling, but we're bringing back a way of having to not be an essay, not be a presentation, but having to evoke empathy from others to make us be drawn into the story. Every year it gets me. Like I you know, like I do it, and it's just like, yeah, and like that's it.

Claire 31:50

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this really speaks to some of the biggest monsters we like have in our lives are the ones that we don't face, right? And so to give them this like language and time to think about it in a deeper, more meaningful way that they get to like actually even be in control and like construct the narrative, I bet that that's really really powerful. I was it yeah, go ahead.

Lucas 32:14

No, no, I was gonna say like the um one of the other ones I was just thinking of that this year was so fascinating just because it was so different in the forms was like well, I mean, one of the my favorite parts around my curriculum is just not other than like setting like it has to be a mask or setting it has to be a storytelling, it's just like leaving it really open for interpretation. Like, what is what is a mask to you? What is a you know, what mode does that make? And then so one of the projects we do is called speculative cartography, where they have to like look into the future and they have to take a particular region that is hopefully close to them in some way, could be their local community or I could choose one around the world, and they have to imagine it, like you know, hundreds, if not thousands of years into the future, and look at a dystopian vision and a utopian vision, and then they have to create a map, you know, quotation marks of like what that what would how could you map that? What would that look like? And we kind of do this thing called counter mapping, where we're meant to try and decolonize ways of how traditional maps hold so much power over different people around the world, particularly how colonization has affected our understanding of you know what a map can do in power. And um, and so you know, I said you have to make a map, but the like, you know, two of our students brought us down in a kind of silent meditation down to the docks and engaged and like dropped a microphone underneath the water, and we engaged in this like eyes closed, like imaginative map of space. You know, one of our students ended up taking us on a walk out to the soccer field where we all had to be blindfolded and navigate the terrain as they like talked about a dystopian um um rural like uh community in like northern Mongolia or Russia, I believe. Like, and I think suddenly I was just I was just surprised that I think students are hungry for the capacity to yeah, to let imagination take them not just like how can I be creative with this project, but actually like how can I be blow open how I tell this story and how I tell and go into that. And I think that's that's actually the underbelly of the underbelly of the underbelly um of what I want students to be getting at is like the content, awesome, whatever you choose to do, but I I just want them to find that for themselves. Like what's your form? What's your way of blowing open the way of storytelling that's gonna bring people in the way that you want to bring them in?

Claire 34:19

It's almost like inviting them to play.

Lucas 34:21

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, I think there's like a sense of play is so vital. I think uh like letting them and I think that it's still crazy to me how much curriculum is so binding, like how we still don't have the ability to let students play, the ability to let students interpret. Um, you know, I love when students try and clarify. You know, they're like, K, but like, what do you mean? Like, do you want it to be like this? And I was like, I don't know. Like, how do you feel? Like, you know, like everything like K but map? Like, you know, like K, but like poem, like what do you mean? Like, can my poem be this? And I was like, Yeah, totally. Like, you know, I had students present a poem that was just like an amalgamation of like materials on the floor of the space, and it was like that's the poetry. And I was like, Yes, you know, like thank you for bringing that to us. Like, yeah, that's amazing.

Claire 35:06

I feel like oh yeah, go for it. I was just gonna say, I feel like I'm that student that I'm like, teacher, like can you give me some clear details here? Because we're so used to that, we're not used to being told. I don't know, maybe some people that have, especially if they have more like arts kind of artistic parents, like maybe they're used to being invited to think about things in a bigger picture way like that. But I was raised by a mom who has her doctorate in education, so and a teacher at that. So yeah, and you know, that also goes to speak for how structured classrooms are expected to be in places like where I grew up in Louisiana, where there's like certain curriculum in classroom narratives that you have to follow. And so, yeah, they I very much have that background of like, I want to know what you're asking me, but like there's such a power in being like, do what you want, what feels what feels right, because yeah, we have such this like construct that not always like our emotions or like ideas can fit into.

Lucas 35:59

Well, and that's something that so much so often emotions just can't fit into, I think a lot of educational spaces, and I feel like you know, I think that's something I've also struggled with is like constantly it's like you know, like how do you teach kids about climate without devastating them? Like, you know, and I think that how do you make them feel, you know, and yet we go deeper than that. We go to a level, you know, of like, you know, we talk about apocalypses and you know, and the ends of worlds, and how for some the narrative growing up around climate has been the end of the world, the end of the world is coming. And and then we have we we complicate that by bringing in perspectives which are lived experiences of some of our students and also other older, you know, uh for time that are the idea that people have lived through apocalypses, you know, the idea that is a privilege to think that the end of the world has not already happened. There have been several ends of worlds. And I think that to talk about the death of languages, the death of indigenous peoples, the death of, you know, of cultures, of ways of being, the idea that worlds have ended. And so I think that it's humbling sometimes to realize that, you know, to realize that that's not doesn't make it any less scary, doesn't make it any less devastating, but it makes the students constantly start to think around, you know, what is it to live in an apocalypse and what is it to live in an approaching um end. And I'm trying to remember, oh, I can't remember it right now, but we'll look at it, it'll come to me right after. But there's this incredible piece of like talking about performance art and climate, there's this incredible piece that was uh I think premiered. I mean, but it was performed at the Venice Biennale a couple years ago or a while back, and it's this opera, and it's an opera where you kind of think the audience comes up and is in this pavilion, and you look down, you're looking down, and the entire production is this hyper-realistic recreation of like a slice of a beach, and it's just like it's all sand, and then everyone and there's this beaming kind of lights down on the stage. And all the performers are dressed like just hyper-realistic folks going to the beach and enjoying the sun in the summer, and they're all just sprawled across the beach, and then the the project invites others to come and be able to participate, and you can just like you know lay on the beach and enjoy, and like you know, they have kids playing games and they have like people tanning and stuff, like you know, and um, and and they're singing, and they start to and then from this the singers erupt, but they never break the kind of routine naturalism of just being present on this beach. And I love that because I think I think it was the director or someone else speaking to it, but like, but like that's that's climate change. They said like that's what it could look like, you know. So many people are looking for the image of the earth on fire, like the idea, this apocalyptic vision of the you know, end of the world, the sci-fi version of it, the monstrous version of it. But often like climate change is is laying on the beach and it the sun being hotter, a little bit hotter. You know, it's like it's so subtle, it's so simple. And I think that there's something powerful about that, of reminding folks about that, that it's just that the changes have already been happening, already are happening, the apocalypse is already here, you know, and the apocalypse doesn't always look like the atom bomb for it to be as devastating. Um it's it's sometimes it's way subtler and sinister of how it's affecting people and cultures in different ways. And I think that's if I can that's where I start to get some real complex out of the students when they start to realize, like, oh, I don't have to speak to I don't have to have lived through a flood to talk about how my, you know, like my community is being affected in other ways, like our languages are being affected actually by this, our indigenous forms of governance are being affected by this, but that is as I don't know, devastating um as a climate event, as is an earthquake, as is a flooding.

Claire 39:30

So many people are afraid of of um what may be, and also a lot of people are afraid of climate, and I think it ties into a lot of like climate eco-anxiety that youth particularly face, um knowing that we've got this big long future that we're supposed to grow into and and use savings accounts to to uh prepare for whatever is to come when it feels like so unknown and it feels so much like yeah, we are going over this. It feels like we're going over the hump of like the bad is is yet to come. And I mean, in some ways that's very much true. Like we are gonna face like really terrible storms, I think, in like our lifetime if we're like lucky and privileged enough to grow old into our lives. Like things will in theory only get you know, sadly worse in terms of like climate. Um hopefully things will get better in terms of stability and how we take care of each other. But those don't have to get worse, those can definitely get better. But it does make me feel more comfortable knowing that like, or even just not knowing, but speculating or thinking that what if it already didn't and you know we're just here, we're the survivors of it, um trying to make peace with it.

Lucas 40:41

Understand it kind of through that. Yeah. I think that's powerful. I think that the yeah, the idea that the you know the solution to fear of the future is not being unafraid. I think it's it's fear is fear, you know. I think it will be there, it will always be there. You know, there's I know I hate when students always argue like, are we living in more uncertain times? You know, there's that cult comes out. I think we're living in the most uncertain times. Like, no, you know, you know, times have always been uncertain. You know, like it'll continue to be uncertain, you know what I mean? There's no certainty, but that's something that I can always argue to my students, you know, there's no certainty to any route. I mean, uh there's no way of yes history per repeating itself, but no, but it also evolves and changes, and there's so I think that I don't know, you want to like let people like I don't want students, it can be quite naive as a teacher to think that like my goal is to like make things so hopeful that it'll overshadow the fear, and instead being more human to say, I want to give you tools and things that are gonna help you uh to navigate that, but it doesn't mean it's gonna vanish, and it doesn't mean it's gonna go away. And I think that yeah, like and that's you know, something our students face, which is so hard, is because we're like a capital C climate program in some ways, like that word, you know, so often you hear other youth really self-policing each other and even kind of asking people like, well, what have you done? You know, like what are you doing? You know, like why you know, so these kids I find them often grappling with like, okay, like what have I done physically? Like, what can I show for the changes that I've made for my education? And I say I argue the same thing to say that you know, like there's so many young med students that are asked why haven't you heard cancer? You know what I mean? And yet the young climate kids, kids that are in climate action that pursue a career in that are asked, like, pro show us what you've done. And I think that like you said, like sometimes the the most radical act is like, well, I'm I form a resilient community, like I brought my my community together. I and you know, I I helped, you know, revitalize a language that's been dying from my grandparents, and I've been helping to like it's these the kind of you know, that it actually that onus that we should be putting on the visible change is not the onus of the individuals, it's the onus of the system, it's onus of the corporation, you know what I mean? Like why are we demanding teenagers to solve the recycling when it's like there's like capitalist structures that are, you know, yes, they are in having creative imaginative ideas to it, but I think where we need to be investing in youth is investing in their resilience, and and resilience is a complex term though, I think, but also investing in their vitality and investing in their community, and I think from there change will be seen, change will be felt, I think more than just seen.

Claire 43:17

Do you have any like nuggets of of knowledge or inspiration to like how do we invest in youth? You know, other than like you're doing great work, you're working with them, educating them, inspiring, I'm sure inspiring them. If you were my theater teacher, I'd be so excited. I feel like that would just be the coolest ever. Um yeah, but other than like education, yeah, are there other ways to like how do we and even as like even youth, like how can you support youth? Do you have ideas on on how that because if you know a lot of um our audience, at least like with the Starfish, with the organization I work for is youth, and so hopefully they're watching this.

Lucas 43:59

Well, Well, magic bits of advice. Honestly, like listen to them. I think giving young people spaces to be seen and heard in really vulnerable ways, I think is just awesome, whether that's in climate and anything. I think letting it be okay to not know, to be uncertain, to be afraid, um, to be uncomfortable is really powerful. I think creating spaces for that in young people and and you know to be embarrassed and be wrong. Um and you know, is it can happen in any field, I think and in any space, you know, with young people. I think that young people um shouldn't only be around young people, you know, and I think that's something that, you know, when we're looking looking at like decolonizing practice, something that I feel like I wish we had more, we have a little bit of taste of, but just like that having elders, well, you know, indigenous elders, elders from community, elders from family, um, just teachers of different generations, folks of different generations is returning to the fact that sometimes this, yeah, really colonial way of just putting a thousand 16-year-olds in the same building being like, why aren't you all growing? It's like, it's like, no, like put them in community. Like, you know, what are we like?

Claire 45:19

The realest thing I've ever heard.

Lucas 45:22

That's so you know, like I was like, yeah, bring bring elders in, bring young people, you know, younger than young people, you know what I mean? Like, I want like I think, you know, in in my ideal situation, yeah, like teenagers that the folks that I'm working with, adolescent really are are yeah, are surrounded by people of other ages. And it's constantly, I find that like as someone who's like, you know, getting older, not really, you know, like I'm not very far from the generationally of them, and yet I find being around them teaches me so much. And I think that the fact that there's so many people who don't let young people into the into rooms of power and don't let them into spaces of um influence, and I think that there's often this like you know, I don't know, this cycle, this ritual of ridiculing young people, of ridiculing, like, oh, this is generation, blah blah blah. And then kind of going back. And I think that you have to know that that's always happened, you know, that like the same way we are doing it to Gen X Z, Alpha, whatever, like wherever we're going to think the same way was done to us, you know, down. And I think that more, and there's something there that's I don't know where that comes from, but I I just feel like I would love to see more spaces where young people are not just in young people spaces. You know, like I I hate, you know, another hot take. I would say not hate, that's a bad word. Um hot take is that you know, like I don't produce theater for young people, I just produce theater. It has young people in it, young people are watching. Um, but I'm not doing like teen theater, like you know, like high school theater. Like, you know, like I'm like I was like, I would like to argue that the work that we're doing, this the work that these students are doing, whether it's in theater or in the climate program, is of the same level I was seeing in my masters, you know what I mean? Like, and I always said, like, and there's no reason why the age of a person should define the level of respect um that their work and their research and their thoughts and their curiosity gets. Um and so yeah, I don't know, bring young people into every space you have, bring old people into every space you have, bring destroy the terms of young and old and just have a spectrum of like spaces. I don't get rid of age requirements into things of you know, of spaces and programs. And you know, I think that'd be the my biggest kind of advice I can give. And also just that yeah, and being humble. I think being able to like be vulnerable. I think all good teachers know that you're constantly you have to be a student to be a teacher, and so I think that I'm I'm very I hope trying to be more humble in the sense that I don't know a ton of what I'm teaching. I'm just in it. I am I'm exploring it the same way. I'm exploring with my students, and and every year I want to be challenged, I want to be provoked, I want to be pushed, and I think, and the same thing I want to do that for them.

Claire 48:03

That's wonderful. That's a really good answer. Yeah, bringing young folks into I always think of your musical or you're a theater person. I don't know if you love the musical side of that as much as I do, but I love musical theater. Um but the room where it happens, exactly. Yes, yes, yes, I do the reference. Yes, yes, okay, good. Yeah, the room where I just said I couldn't stop thinking of Aaron Burr being like the room where it happened.

Lucas 48:27

Bring them in, bring them in.

Claire 48:29

Which you do see more of these days is just what we really have to look out for at the same time is when it's just for show.

Lucas 48:37

Yeah, like we again, like there's these like you know, youth thing, you know, like to say like, oh, we have a a sector of our thing that's youth, and that's great, and yeah, it can be great, it can be, you know what I mean? But also but can be, and like, but what what you know when after that, you know what I mean? Like at what point do you and like and I think that we're living in a time that is particularly tumultuous around titles and words and things of things. Like I would argue that programs with the word climate in it are struggling, I think right now. I think there was a great push for that, I think, in the last maybe 10 years, 10, 15 years. And I'd say now I would argue there's a dip. There's something happening where I think it's not as I don't know, you know, that's what happens with like mainstream kind of culture. And I think it was like it's just not as flashy anymore.

Claire 49:22

Ebbs and flows.

Lucas 49:23

And it kind of now I'm I worry for young kids where I feel like they get, you know, like even with our program, it's climate action leadership. And so often people just hear the word climate and like the words action and leadership like fall away. And I'm like, you know, I say and I'm like, yes, climate, but I'm like, I'm talking about leadership, I'm talking about just leadership, and I'm talking about that like any ethical just leader in our world has to be grappling with climate. That's just full stop. And so why does that have to be like I don't need to I don't need to put in that word uh for you to get there, but somehow when people hear that word, they just kind of still there's an overarching power of like either picket liner, tree hugger kind of stereotype dominates a lot of these young kids, like where I think people are like looking outside into the program. And so I hope that you know we can be building spaces where we're grappling with climate and community and futures and uncertainties in equal spaces, but just we don't need to have that title on top of our programs and that you know to have like a climate youth advisory council. Like it's like it's like you can just have a council. You know what I mean? Like you can like and have a council and yes, it could be youth, and yes, it could be kids about climate, and but that doesn't, you know, you don't need to I don't know. That's just where I'm I'm worried, I'm worried if the the pigeon the pigeonholing is now if those if those spaces which are exclusive to those things are now closing that we haven't woven in those kind of those opportunities into the other spaces. And then if they're not woven in, if they've just been carved out, they can very be easily be chiseled out and filled in.

Claire 50:54

I also wanted to say I just think like in terms of bringing young folks into the room where it happens, like and then we've had really interesting conversation with um another uh guest that we had on one of our podcast episodes that had been a participant at cop, one of the cops. Yeah, as you know, there are many cops. Um hard to follow sometimes, but yeah, this cop was particularly in, I think it was in Cairo, Egypt. And yeah, like the the it sounds like it was a really meaningful effort to like bring youth into the conversation, but it's kind of one of those things where like the answer to a leaky bucket isn't putting water into it, it's like plugging in the hole. So, like, don't set that bucket up for success and doing it stop. And so very, very key player in terms of like setting youth up for success is like I think youth get frustrated. We get frustrated if we're not feeling seen or heard, or if like we're we don't have that same like I think there's a bit more urgency involved to like a lot of what like youth want to happen, and urgency in itself is an issue with like especially Western colonization and our sense of urgency. I don't think it's very helpful, but I also don't think that it's helpful that a lot of um action in climate doesn't have a sense of urgency at the same time where they're like we need to make plans on this, but we aren't gonna be like doing a day to day, like stopping everything and causing like or implementing transformational climate action, which be like, let's change up everything. And youth have the energy to do that because we're young and we're like, why we just break part systems that are failing us? But I think for the people that created those systems, like it's very hard to deconstruct something that you've been told was the right answer.

Lucas 52:37

Yeah, and also like you said, like you talk about the energy, like you know, it's like when youth have such such energy and such passion and such, and not to say you know, there's not folks of any age that do, but I think that there's just something around collective young people that have like this like incredible ferocity. And I think that so often, yeah, we don't tap into it fast enough. Yeah, you're like, okay, you're like, yeah, like, oh, you're passionate about climate, like let's get you all, and that's it's that's that paradox of like wanting to, like, same within our program. We want the kids to have all the skills and and competencies and prepare them for a future in this, but also they come in, yeah, like full of life and energy, and then like quickly the realities of like, okay, like how am I applying to university? What does this actually look like? What is my actual acceptance? Like that paradox of being like, how can I both trans like transform young people into their best selves to approach an urgent future where they feel they have the capacity and the role and the responsibility to make change, but also do it in a way where they feel like they're protected for like their own self, their own family, their own community. It's like you know, you can argue that when you are in a place of privilege. It's very or it's much easier to argue that to say, like, do both, you know what I mean? Like, but it's very different to say, you know, we have students who are go who are incredibly passionate and powerful and devoted to climate action while they're here at Pearson, and then say, Well, I'm going back home to be a midwife. You know what I mean? And I'm like, and I'm like, that is climate work, but but also I'm like, how can I best ensure that they don't feel like that that's any less of change making and any less of that? And how can they you said, like, how can you still tap into that urgency? Like, how can you have um going back to theater? Like, I love like a timeline. I love like we will produce something at this date, and you know, and you start with nothing, and it's like we will have people will come to see us and like what happened? Why don't we have more spaces like that for climate and for change, just change in our communities, just say December, you know, the whole community is gonna gather around and see it. Like, and so and you're like, Well, but we haven't pitched the like, I don't know what the project will be, but it's the date's set. They're gonna be there that night, so prepare yourself and have something, you know. I think if people I always tell one little, you know, of my students, I said, like, you know, make the poster first. You know, it's like you know, you're talking about an event, a theater show, a project, like make sometimes I've in with tooth and fang, I've made posters and pitched and full things out before we even wrote the show, you know. And it was like, well, now the there's a show and there's a title, you know, like it's gonna be like it's like so. Imagine if we did that with other things and we said, like, oh, it's the community solution for our local ecology, and like that's the poster we're putting out into the world, and it's like, you know what, I gotta share it at the end of the year.

Claire 55:15

Yes.

Lucas 55:16

And what is it? Can we guide people around to do that?

Claire 55:18

That reminds me of a quote from Adrian Marie Brown, I think it is. It's just about like organizing is believing in the future.

Lucas 55:26

Yeah, yeah.

Claire 55:27

Adrian said it way better than I did. As always, I'm really bad at re-quoting things. I just like break it apart to like the like most basic form. I love it though. Yeah, that really stuck out to me as someone who like I organize um like Queer Bird Club here on Vancouver Island. Uh, so just like organizing feels like the most radical form of just like honestly, whether it's like climate justice or action or even just like community um networking, like planning and organizing events is such a weird and fun and unique thing to do.

Lucas 56:01

Yeah.

Claire 56:02

And it's just always amazing how people show up.

Lucas 56:05

Yeah, I'm trying to think of them. We had an incredible indigenous elder come into one of our call classes, and oh, um similarly you're talking about quotes, like I'm reducing it down. But um just talking about the kind of um reverse engineering of community events and how often we, you know, is that there's a colonial, often, not always, but particularly there's a colonial approach, arguably, to how we plan events where we start with the like, okay, like where are we gonna do it? You know, and then now we need the materials, and then how are we gonna get the food, and then how are we gonna get this thing? And we're leading and we're leading all the way up to finally the event and then what will happen and then how it's responded. And then, you know, he really challenged that when he was talking in our class about kind of reversing that narrative of like how do we begin with the impact? We what we want. Like, do we know what we want this night to do? Do we know how we want it to be received? And then let's move back from that. Then who has to be there? Then where is it going to be? Then how will we get there? And then eventually we'll come back all the way to the the place and the food and the party and the kind of events and stuff. But like, but if we begin there, and but instead, and I I think it's so often, yeah, it's easy to make a and it's easy to think you're doing that. I think a lot of us think like, oh, I'm like, I I know I want this event to do that, but often we're so obsessed with the mechanics of the event that you can have incredible intention, and then just to be like, the event can really not be received that way. It had like, you know, like it's like, you know, just because you know, I've had I've seen some incredible uh climate coalitions and gatherings that have been meaningful and impactful and intentional. I've seen others that had fancy posters and fancy names and you know, and fancy ways and and big fancy goals, and but the how I was how that space was held was not reflective of what uh it wasn't it didn't feel real of what change they actually wanted to see. Yeah, it just felt like it was easy to check off like we had a climate conference. You know what I mean? I love going back to you know just the Coast Salish nations and indigenous practice and so many indigenous practices, but around just gathering around food and the idea that you know good events, good community has good food. You know what I mean? Like, amen. And it's not a cop-out to be like someone is there's the corporate side of it where they're like, no, like, but we do we really need to, like, you know, you're like, yeah, actually, fundamentally. And like the course that we had here, um, one of the ones that's um reconciliation is a global skill, um, has uh where we invite in indigenous elders um that we've been working in collaboration with um to the campus, is every single class there's food, right? And they're just they're always making food, and so we we turn their classroom into a kitchen, and there's just like and the idea that you are you know that you are eating the knowledge, the the idea that the consuming of that like helps you and it and sometimes I'm just like it is as simple as that. It's like do we need a climate conference of youth from all around the world? It's like yes, but also do we just do we just need like a huge feast? And at that night, it will be those conversations, like you know, and just know that that will be the the right people are invited and they have the right intentions and feelings. You may get far greater impact from the like just not even selling it as that, rather than coming together and there's that anxiety too of like, okay, I I mean I love I love not to say in a kind of like naive or not naive to say, but like kind of cynical way, is like the always like the last gathering or closing of any conference or like or kind of like big coalition gathering around climax. It's always like yeah, and that's fun, and that was that's the world. You know, like thank you all for coming. I mean, like, and then you just left like it's not gonna say we wanted like to see the change, but we just I just don't know. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm like, yeah, we did a lot of talking there, didn't we? Versus like, I don't know, I sometimes I've had more impactful like hikes. Like students were like, I we never went into that hike like thinking we were gonna come out of it, and I left like just reeling with like questions and stories and things and fights that we were breaking out on, like a hike up a h up on one of the mounts here, and I just think so. I don't know. So but then but that's the paradox. Like, then how do you both have that serendipity of that and also have the intention of that and have the urgency of that? Like, how do you weave that in? I think that's that's a big, big, big, big question.

Claire 1:00:15

Yeah, very big question. Wow, yeah, that's that's a really good way to I think bring our little chat to a close here. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I feel like I feel moved actually. I think these convers conversations are really um important. And yeah, it just you know, similar to what I talked about to some other folks we chatted with in the more like arts-based uh community, this is like seemingly to me very new. And I mean it seems like y'all have been doing it all along, and so I feel kind of lonely in the fact that this feels new. Um, but just coming from like a background in biology and then a master's in environmental science, like, yeah, my heart had such like a big um gap and like ache to where like what I wanted from like learning about the environment and being like an environmentalist or conservation biologist, and like how to put that into practice with how like my inner self also was really drawn to arts and theater and writing and all this that I kind of was like taught, oh that's a crow. Or a raven.

Lucas 1:01:21

One last interruption.

Claire 1:01:24

That sounds they sound like radar, like sonars. Really neat. Yeah, like I, you know, being from a rural area, there's really isn't like intersection isn't really like a thing, like of anything. There's hardly. There's just like no intersection. Everyone's just like, everyone stay over here, you're a biologist, you should be an accountant, you should be a lawyer. Like very much a um the way is set out for you rather than like make your own way. And so, like coming from rural area and kind of like having that background. Um it feels really refreshing to I guess learn that there are people making like their own way and combining passions that they love and not just like letting one thing just fall to being like a hobby or something like that, if that makes sense, and like truly bridging what you're passionate about. Yeah, really cool.

Lucas 1:02:16

Thank you so much for just holding this space and just love talking and just love and you're always invited here. Like onto the campus.

Claire 1:02:23

I have to see a show. I really want to see a show. Come, calm calm yeah. Thanks so much for tuning in to the Seeds of Hope, a climate storytelling podcast. This podcast was hosted and produced by me, Claire Marshall, with Britt McCubbin as our director of photography. We'd also like to extend a special thank you to Telestory Hive for their production support. Finally, shout out to the Starfish Canada, home of Seeds of Hope podcast, supporting youth like climate storytelling and leadership across the country. Learn more at www.thestarfish.ca.