When sea level rise accelerates, who will it impact the most? The next generation of planners, government officials, residents, and business owners may be young right now, but the importance of informing them and getting them engaged with the issue was not lost on the Matanzas sea level rise project team and steering committee. As with the college and high school student workshops in May, we recently engaged middle school students participating in the summer program at St. Johns Technical High School in St. Augustine to teach them about sea level rise, and to find out what they thought about the issue and what they value in their community.

GTM Research Reserve’s Coastal Training Program Coordinator, Tina Gordon, coordinated with teachers and administrators at St. Johns Technical High School to offer a sea level rise workshop to about 40 students in grades 6-8. The workshop was structured like the previous adult community and professional group formats. The content of the presentations, visioning, and role-play game remained the same, but it was re-worked to meet the curriculum level of the students.

The middle school students were most excited by the visioning exercise in which they told us what places and features were important, what services were important, and what they would do to plan for sea level rise. The students were also a great help in making suggestions to the team on future sea level rise education for their age group, including having students draw pictures of their communities and adaptation strategies. Like other youth participants in our workshops, the middle school students leaned more towards protection of places they loved through fortification such as sea walls than adults (who more often considered planned relocation), and the students desired to keep natural areas natural. The team will incorporate this input into the overall project, Planning for Sea Level Rise in the Matanzas Basin.

The project team would like to thank Linda Krepp and Wayne King for enabling their students’ participation, all of the teachers who assisted in our group activities, and the UF graduate students who facilitated the interactive activities.

A student ranks the most important features of the Matanzas Basin and the needs for effective sea level rise planning.

Students play the adaptive strategy game with GTM Research Reserve Coastal Training Program Coordinator, Tina Gordon.