"At 16, Katya Kondragunta has already lived through two disasters amped by climate change. First came wildfires in California in 2020. Ash and smoke forced her family to stay inside their home in the Bay Area city of Fremont, for weeks.

Then they moved to Prosper, Texas, where she dealt with record-setting heat last summer.

“We’ve had horrible heat waves and they’ve impacted my everyday life,” the high school junior said. “I’m in cross country ... I’m supposed to go outside and run every single day to get my mileage in.”

Kondragunta says in school she hasn’t learned about how climate change is intensifying these events, and she hopes that will change when she gets to college.

Increasingly, U.S. colleges are creating climate change programs to meet demand from students who want to apply their firsthand experience to what they do after high school, and help find solutions."

Alexa St. John reports for the Associated Press May 22, 2024. [2]