Rhode Island’s Ocean and Coastal Magazine

Summer/Fall 2023

Letter From the Editor

LEARNING TOGETHER

This issue of 41°N looks at all the ways we learn to do the things we love, whether through formal lessons, our own initiative, or finding mentors and fellowships, as well as how we share what we know, through interacting with peers, training other teachers, providing hands-on demonstrations—or even opening the doors to a new museum.

These stories showcase programs that bring together learners of all ages and abilities. The common thread that unites them is that even as they develop new skills through taking surfing or cooking classes, assembling and testing desktop wind turbines, or building an ocean-going mini boat, they are also fostering a sense of community and forging new relationships at the same time.

These communities offer hope for the future—one with more opportunities for students from all backgrounds to find their place in science, technology, engineering, and math, to connect with their culture and heritage, and to feel confidence in trying something new. And from there, perhaps, they will change the world, or their corner of it.

The reviewed book in this issue, Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, demonstrates how these communities, working together, can have tremendous impacts. As paleontologist Jacquelyn Gill writes in her essay “The Asteroid and the Fern,” included in the book, “What could we accomplish if we stood together … What seeds might we plant today that will one day take root above our bones? What if the future was better than the past? What if it was beautiful?”

—Monica Allard Cox, Editor