FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio - After attending the last three annual Sustainable Cleveland (SC2019) Summit events on her own, Fairview High School Science Teacher Colleen Sliwinski received the green light this year to bring along a half dozen of her students to the recent affair.

The Fairview Park teens - Maeve M., Jade P., Timmy H., Hannah M., Kate C. and Jazmine T. - were selected by the city of Cleveland's Department of Sustainability to be part of this year's Youth Sustainability Leadership Program (YSLP).

"It was a really diverse group of students from all over the city and different neighborhoods exploring different levels of sustainability," Sliwinski said. "It was a really good opportunity for my students to interact with all of these professionals in the community."

Department of Sustainability Director Kristin Hall said part of Sustainable Cleveland's mission is to engage people from all walks of life to design and develop a thriving future for Cleveland.

"This includes youth as they will one day be leaders in our communities and will need to continue carrying this work forward," Hall said. "We were excited to have more than 40 Cleveland area high school students join us this year for Mayor Jackson's 9th annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit.

"Each year we have found youth participation to be extremely beneficial to the conversations about the future of our city. The students bring great energy to the event and a fresh perspective as project ideas are developed."

Students at the Sustainable Cleveland (SC2019) Summit were able to participate in different groups: energy, water & land use, community engagement, waste and transportation.

"It was really cool, one of my students went with the sustainable transportation group, which discussed pedestrian and bike safety," Sliwinski said. "She was sitting with the sustainability manager for University Hospitals and the director of Bike Cleveland. It was so impressive to see kids and adults working together."

As part of the Youth Sustainability Leadership Program, the students will continue to meet with their peers on a monthly basis leading up to Earth Day involvement next spring.

In the meantime, she's hoping such efforts make an impact at the High School, where she's the advisor of the newly created Green Team.

"It's a very good mix of kids who are really interested in recycling, composting and things in our school," Sliwinski said.

"Over the next few years we want to make sure our cafeteria is suited for really effective composting and recycling. We're also talking about having a school garden and more of a farm-to-table thing going on producing some food here on campus. So overall this really was a good experience for them."