Earth Day was founded in 1970 as a day of education surrounding environmental issues. In recent times, Earth Day has focused on confronting the climate crisis. The North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center (NC CASC), a joint effort of the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Colorado Boulder, held its inaugural “Climate Solutions Days” during Earth Week 2022, providing an à la carte offering of presentations, workshops and training by scientists and practitioners working on climate change and natural resource changes in the North Central region of the United States. This region includes the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. Learn more about who we are at NC CASC here. 

Participants engaged in pressing climate problems and solutions in the region, such as the growing wildfire hazardand drought, which is increasingly desiccating parts of the intermountain and West and Great Plains. Sessions also included a discussion of  effective ways to communicate climate change impacts and adaptation strategies, the science tools and applications available to resource managers to assess current and future risk to ecosystems as part of the center’s Climate Science Support Platform, climate adaptation partnerships with Tribal Nations, and specific projects, like the Grasslands Synthesis. “Climate Solutions Days” provided an opportunity to bring research, applications, and collaborative effort to bear on actionable science – science that will make a difference in people’s lives and the ecosystems upon which they rely.

Most participants hailed from the 7-state North Central region, with a little over a third from elsewhere around the country. International participants registered from Pakistan, South Africa, France and Canada. Large percentages were affiliated with the federal agencies (30%) and academic institutions, as professional researchers and teachers (27%), with 15 participants affiliated with Tribal Nations. The event was held entirely in a virtual environment and made use of creative outlets like breakout rooms within Zoom, Mentimeter (interactive real-time voting) and Padlet (a collaborative web platform for sharing ideas in virtual bulletin board form).

Please continue to check our “Climate Solutions Days” playlist on our YouTube channel. On Twitter, check out @NC_CASC for highlights from our sessions during Earth Week. Session details and the full agenda can be found on our Climate Solutions Days 2022 website page.