Meet The 2023 Civics & Conservation Summit Youth Delegates
For twenty-five years, AYEA has activated, guided, & supported Alaska’s next generation of leaders. This year has been no exception. On Thursday, March 17th, thirteen young adults, ages 13-18, kicked off a week full of learning, exploration, and advocacy in the 2023 AYEA Civics & Conservation Summit.
YOUR SUPPORT MAKES OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Alaska Youth for Environmental Action has been working with teens from across the state for over 20 years. Help us ensure that these teens and more have rich opportunities to build their legacy together in the year ahead.
Ethan is Tlingit, and as an Eagle Wolf he has been learning his language for his whole life. Ethan will be attending UAS, where he will try to learn and perfect his language practice. He aspires to save it and bring it to the world with fun ways of sharing his language with others.
Suella is a senior at Chugiak High School. She enjoys creating art, skiing, and educating herself on Alaskan history, advocating for Indigenous and environmental rights. Suella aims to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Bristol Bay, and other public lands. She also cares about the salmon drought, advocacy for Missing Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, & Two Spirit People, and food sovereignty.
Tina, or CQ, is a senior at Kotzebue High School, loves to draw and watch anime, and is planning on becoming a teacher to inspire others to care about our planet and our environment. CQ believes that our Earth is beautiful and that we need to take care of our planet if we want to thrive. She hopes to prevent rising sea levels from threatening the coastal communities she’s from.
Isabelle was born and raised in Fairbanks where she fell in love with nature. She hopes to pursue a career in political science, ethics, and cultural anthropology, focusing on how we have shaped the world by affecting political landscapes, agriculture, and more. Isabelle sees that society is causing damage to the world around us, with warmer winters, an increase of forest fires in Alaska, and desertification in the US. She hopes to learn more about how we as a society can better work alongside nature in our everyday lives.
Lydia is a freshman at Kake High School. She loves God, and enjoys activities like sports, reading, art, and music. She is Korean-American and has lived in Kake for twelve years, moving from Virginia at age two. She wishes to someday have a future focused on helping others, and hopes to make a positive difference in this world, whether large or small.
Ashley is a senior at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, where she has attended all four years. She aims to raise awareness about the Ambler Road Project's potential impacts on the land. Her hometown, Kobuk, is 47 miles away from Ambler, and it would be sad to see the negative effect on their subsistence and traditional ways of life.
Nick’s favorite subject is math and reading, likes to take walks, do chores and be with his family. He aims to think about how to not use nature in different ways, like not using trees for pencils.
Joshua likes to play in the snow, play games, and be on his phone. He wants to consider how to save trees and protect nature, for example, by not wasting so much paper.
His favorite activity is reading and playing on his virtual reality headset after completing his chores. He aims to reduce littering and to help others who can’t help themselves.
Josie is a high school student in Fairbanks, Alaska. She’s passionate about building strong communities in order to move our world in a better direction. Josie aims to advocate for food justice because it represents community, culture, and emotion. She would love to learn more ways to protect Alaskans’ access to food and to incentivize local food production.
Jacob Delaney loves history and geopolitics. His favorite color is green, second to blue. In his free time, he enjoys debating, rock climbing, and volunteering. He cares about mental health treatment and resources for individuals and their loved ones. Jacob is a volunteer at VBS whose theme is operation restoration, focusing on how to help the restoration of Alaska's coast destruction from Typhoon Murbok last fall.
Taralynn, or Agluryaq Calista, uses she/her/they pronouns and is a junior at Steller Secondary! She is an advocate, artist, writer, outdoorsy person, fashion enjoyer, and animal lover. Taralynn is passionate about protecting Bristol Bay, reducing litter in Alaska, getting food to those in need, and climate change education.
Youth Peer Trainer
Joshua, a Polaris K-12 sophomore, thoroughly loves the outdoors of Alaska. He goes cross-country skiing during the winter and fishing during the summer whenever he’s not indoors. He is passionate about journalism, serving as a journalist for the High School LA Times, and is a dedicated student advocate on a local and state level; he serves on the Anchorage School District SAB and is the AASG Region 4 Representative. Other concerning issues he tackles, besides climate change, include the mental health crisis and increasing civic education among the youth of Alaska.