For my capstone project I worked with the Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) to create a chapter (also called a kvutzah) of their organization here in Philly, specifically at my synagogue. JYCM is a primarily youth-led organization taking climate action across the country, especially through the values of Judaism and the Jewish identity. I was able to start a kvutzah by teaching for three 45 minute sessions at one of my synagogue’s teen programs called Teen Tuesday, which is made up of 7th-9th graders. There were usually 11-14 of them there, and I taught about how the environment is connected to Judaism, how to take climate action, and more that can be viewed in my lesson plans which are in the google drive link below. This took a lot of planning which includes the virtual Kvutzah Leaders Fellowship, the JYCM Northeast Retreat, and meeting with one of the teen programmers at my synagogue, as well as my mentor (one of the JYCM adult organizers). The fellowship connected me with other teens who were aiming to create a kvutzah in their communities, and gave me training for how to actually start my own kvutzah, and was the main thing that helped to prepare me. One of the biggest lessons I learned from this is how much teachers and students learn from each other, because that is exactly what I experienced, and it brought me a lot of insight. (Please read the lesson plans before anything else in the google drive folder).