Sunday is a pretty slow day at COP15 (the main site at the Bella Center is shut down until Monday) but Saturday was packed, with representatives from the 937 observer organizations here this weekend lined up for hours to pick up credentials for the NGO exhibition and side events.

cc photo by Matthew McDermott

These included organizations most of you are familiar with and some of you have worked with before – like ICLEI and 350.org – and large universities like Stanford. But because the booths were assigned free of charge to the first 200 NGOs to request one, it was a great opportunity to hear about some smaller projects, like the Ithaca College Public Opinion Poll.

A group of students from Ithaca College turned their class project into a public opinion website, with participation from nearly 1000 individuals from around the world. Among other questions, the group asked whether the conference would produce a meaningful treaty (54% were optimistic that it would) and if allowing carbon emissions to rise above 350 ppm was dangerous (though a strong majority said yes, check out this Gallup poll to see how views on the dangers of climate change vary around the world).

If the students you work with are looking for organizations to partner with or maybe just for a good example of young people doing relatively high profile work, you might encourage them to explore some of the other pages on the site, which also highlights other youth-oriented organizations participating in the conference and working on environmental issues.

Just as a reminder, you can watch the Clim’City event we’ve organized with NOAA online starting Monday at 8:15AM EST.