"Quick! In one minute tell the person across from you something you learned in our three-day Climate Adaptation Training that you plan to take back to your community."

Our 40+ participants weren't phased as they blurted out new information they gained from presentations by the NOAA Coastal Services Center and six local speakers on topics like climate change science, creating a vulnerability assessment, planning for adaptation, and communicating these concepts to your community.

Every minute for 40 minutes our lead instructor asked participants to stand up and move one seat over to speak with a new partner. So many coastal and inland communities from Maine and New Hampshire to speak to, so little time! It's not often the code enforcement officer from Eastport gets to be in the same room with his counterpart in York or with the City Planner from Sanford (or Bath or Kennebunk or Saco). The Coastal Training Program was thrilled to have a diversity of professionals — from conservation commission members to landscape architects.

But Climate Change Speed Dating wasn't the only fun activity during the training; wait 'til you hear about Protecting the Egg! — a metaphor for protecting our resources in the face of uncertainty — and let me tell you, there is more than one way to protect an egg that's being dropped from six feet!

photo credit: Chris Keely