Scientists gather all the time at conferences and meetings to share ideas, research, and discoveries. But how often do high school students get to actively participate in these meetings – especially ones with global consequences? This week, scientists and world leaders met at the Rio+20 Summit in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, to discuss environmental protection and sustainable development. And youth from around the world were there too, through a global videoconference that was the culmination of the SCEnaRioS (Science Centers Engagement and the Rio Summit) project. During the Summit, youth from TechnoMuses (Canada), Museo Interactivo de Economia (Mexico), Museu da Vida (Brazil), Madatech (Israel), and of course the Miami Science Museum, gave presentations to the world about their concerns for their respective environments.

Each presentation was the result of a team project between science centers around the world, so in addition to those science centers that presented live, lots of others were involved in this global collaboration – including Chabot Space and Science Center (California), SciPort (Louisiana), Experimentarium (Denmark), Museo Nazionale della Scienza (Italy), Kankhomba Secondary School (Mozambique), Questacon (Australia), Macau Science Center (Macau, China), and Science Centre Singapore, and of course the Miami Science Museum’s partner, Maloka Interactive Center (Colombia). The SCEnaRioS project is based on the convictions that youth will be an essential part of the solution to global problems, and that global partnerships and collaboration between youth is a big part of ensuring a better future for the Earth.

Partnerships? Check. Informed youth? Check. Solutions to environmental problems? In progress.

At the end of every Digital WAVE session, we celebrate the students’ accomplishment with students, Museum staff, invited families and friends … and of course, chocolate cake! At our recent Family Event at the end of this year’s spring session, students presented the virtual world projects they’d created, which were designed to illustrate water pathways and the impacts of climate change on south Florida. Throughout the program, students gathered information for their projects through all kinds of fun activities. They went on a field trip to Anne Kolb Nature Center, met in-person with University of Miami scientist Dr. Arthur Mariano, met Dr. Annmarie Eldering of NASA via virtual worlds, conducted their own research, and built model aquifers. They even met virtually with students from Maloka Interactive Science Center in Colombia, who were also working on water and  climate related projects, through the Museum’s SCEnaRioS project. The final result was truly impressive, because not only did each group create south Florida environments like the Everglades or downtown Miami, but all of the groups worked together to make these environments fit in one interactive map of south Florida. All of the students received well-deserved certificates of completion, not to mention some yummy cake.

What kind of voice can young people have regarding global issues related to the sustainability of the planet? Very often, they are the ones who are the most enthusiastic about new technologies, and the most eager to use these tools to instigate actions that can make a difference. The SCEnaRioS (Science Centers Engagement and the Rio Summit) project partnership between the Miami Science Museum and Maloka Interactive Science Center in Colombia is bringing students together with these challenges in mind.

Students participating in youth programs in Miami and Bogotá contributed their thoughts and concerns about water resources in their respective locations, and created a video to be shown at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London at the end of March. Miami, with its low-lying coastlines and coral reefs, and Bogotá, with its high altitudes and alpine tundras, may seem very different. But water is universal to all of us.