8th Grade Class Takes a Stand For Public Lands
While it has brought decades-long controversy to Washington D.C., a class of middle school students in New York made a decision in less than one month: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be protected.
“How would you feel if somebody came and tore down your home?” asked fifteen-year-old Faith Scaife in an essay she wrote about the Arctic Refuge, the home of the Porcupine Caribou herd, musk oxen, wolves, imperiled polar bears, and nearly 200 species of migratory birds.
“My friends and I feel very strongly about animals,” Scaife writes. “You should expect us to fight for the animals because if you ruin their homes, not only will you hurt their feelings, you’ll hurt ours as well.”
Scaife, a student at Lake Placid Middle School, wrote her essay with several of her classmates after watching “The Refuge” in class. It’s a documentary film that tells the story of two Gwich’in women continuing the fight to protect the Arctic Refuge. The film explains the biological, cultural, and climatic impacts of fossil fuel extraction in the Arctic.
In April, Scaife and her classmates were given the opportunity to share their essays about the Arctic Refuge in a collaboration with Defenders of Wildlife, Arctic activist and photographer Robert Thorpe, and a community art gallery called BluSeed Studios. The collaboration allowed students to share their essays alongside Thorpe’s photographs of the Arctic Refuge in a month-long exhibition called “From Scratch.”
At the May 4 opening reception, BluSeed Studios founder and artistic director Carol Vossler was happy to see Thorpe’s work with the Lake Placid students.
“His presentation fits our mission in that he is connecting to the community through his photography and the students commentary,” she said.
Scaife, along with her classmate Frank Lawrence, attended the reception with family members, friends, and their teachers. We talked to Lawrence about his essay during the two-hour event.
“We think that they shouldn’t drill there… There are native people who live off the land,” he said.
For both students, “From Scratch” is the first time they’ve had the opportunity to share their work in a public gallery. When we asked Scaife how it felt to see her essay on the wall during the opening reception, she smiled. “It feels pretty good,” she said.
New York State based photographer Robert Thorpe first traveled to the Arctic Refuge in 2008 and has since done about a half dozen exhibits throughout New York.
“It’s kind of sad,” he said. “Not many people know about the Arctic Refuge because it’s so far removed from the Lower 48.”
For Thorpe, “From Scratch” is for the students. “It’s got to give them a lot of confidence to see their work on display,” he said “They need inspiration themselves, and they can see they’re helping out a massive place like the Arctic Refuge.”
- Bekah Ashley (Lake Placid, NY)
Everyone can contribute to the protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by submitting comments about the proposed drilling below:
