High Schoolers Tackle Coastal Conservation on Bald Head Island
High Schoolers Tackle Coastal Conservation on Bald Head Island
Ask a high schooler what it takes to protect a coastline, and most of us picture the same thing: a marine biologist in waders, knee-deep in the surf. On March 17, I learned the picture is much bigger than that. The people fighting for our oceans are also artists, urban planners, policy makers, tour guides, and storytellers. There is no single, linear path to a career in coastal sustainability. The scientists need the storytellers, and the policy makers need the artists, all working in tandem to make real impact.
This lesson came at the Bald Head Island Conservancy’s annual Youth Sustainability Symposium, a day-long program that brought together high school students from across North Carolina. By the time the island came into view off the ferry, the salt air had done its work on our early-morning fog, and we filed off the dock ready to learn.
The morning centered on active listening. Environmental professionals from the North Carolina Coastal Reserve, UNCW Sustainability, and the Village of Bald Head Island walked us through their work, followed by a panel of college students whose paths looked nothing like I expected. Film programs. Data science courses. Public policy seminars. All of them landing, eventually, in coastal conservation. What stayed with me wasn’t any single story but the sheer variety of them. Protecting the ocean needs scientists, yes, but it also needs people who can build a compelling argument, cut a documentary, or make a hard call in a room where nobody agrees.
After lunch, the day turned hands-on. In a barrier island management exercise, my group role-played different stakeholders and argued out a real coastal development scenario. The tension between environmental, economic, and social priorities stopped being theoretical pretty fast. Then came a sustainable art workshop where we made paper from scratch with a local artist, followed by a service project where we helped clean up trash on the island. What had looked pristine from the ferry turned out, on foot, to be scattered with cigarette butts and crushed cans. I’d spent the morning talking about coastal threats in the abstract. Now I was pulling one out of the sand with my gloved hand.
We caught the 5:15pm ferry back to the mainland sunburned and a little quieter than we’d arrived.
My key takeaway from the symposium: collective action. No single expert saves a coastline. It takes all of them, and it takes making these issues matter to people who aren’t paying attention yet. We are the generation who will inherit this problem. We might as well start acting now.
That day inspired me to launch a student-led initiative at Cary Academy focused on cutting single-use plastics and teaching both middle and high school students why coastal communities and our oceans are worth protecting. The symposium taught me about the coast, but it also showed me there is a place for everyone in saving it, including me.
Maddie Boes, a rising junior at Cary Academy in Raleigh
