Youth Voices: Busting Climate Myths in the Digital Age - A Chicago Climate Week Event

Each year, a group of summer interns at Accelerate Climate Solutions, in partnership with NEST (Naperville Environment and Sustainability Task Force), puts together a community event with the goal of bringing together the local community and teaching them about climate change. 

For the first time ever, Chicago is hosting Climate Week from July 18-25, 2026, and this

event is one of the very few that was youth-led on its calendar of 100+ events.   

The intern group that took on this year’s event was the Climate Communications team, whose goal is to connect with others in a variety of ways – from blog posts to tabling – to educate the community and convey the important message of why and how to take action in creating a more sustainable future. 

This year, the team, which includes Phoenix Collins, Jack Ma, Roselynne Orrala, and Andrew Sandoval, decided to center the event around the topic of climate myths, and the dangerous effects of misinformation and disinformation in this field. 

With over 100 people registered, the event was a success, bringing together students, experts in the field, community members, and even elected officials including State Senator Laura Ellman, Naperville Councilman Ian Holzhauer, and DuPage Forest Preserve Commissioner Rick Gieser. The Climate Communications team began by giving an informative presentation that addressed common climate myths, their origins, and the reality behind each one. After that, attendees from across generations connected with each other as they competed for fun prizes during a climate myth trivia. The event concluded with a Q+A session and student tabling for individuals to learn more about what students involved with Accelerate Climate Solutions are doing to fight climate change this summer. 

We appreciate all the hard work our interns put into this event, and everyone that attended. If you didn’t get a chance to attend the event, you can look over the slides the team used here.

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