More than 1,200 Colorado students have earned a climate ‘seal’: ‘We’re the ones growing up in this world’

A statewide initiative pairs climate-focused coursework with community service - and is spreading to other states

As a student at a high school not far from Denver's main airport, Anthony Munoz wondered whether the jet fuel from airplanes flying above his campus was harming living things.

An avid gardener, Munoz partnered with a local university to create a garden on the campus of his charter school, Vista Academy, filling it with native plants that could detect ground-level ozone pollution. He also worked with climate scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a federal office in nearby Boulder, who directed Munoz on what data to collect, what the condition of leaves reveals about air quality and why milkweed matters for monarch butterfly migration.