Grace Goodfellow never imagined that a summer job in a national park and a senior seminar presentation at 抖阴探探App (抖阴探探App) would one day land her at a table inside the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters in Paris, France.
Yet there she sat — headphones on, live translation murmuring in her ears, gold-crusted nameplate before her — as the youth representative on a major panel helping the United Nations (UN) launch a decade of action. “It felt surreal, like something out of a movie,” Goodfellow recalls. “Every moment, I was a little shocked that I was there.”
Goodfellow’s invitation came at a key turning point in the international response to climate change. In March 2025, UNESCO declared the International Year of Glacier Preservation (IYGP), a science and education initiative highlighting the importance of glaciers, ice fields, and permafrost. That year focused global attention on the planet's fragile frozen regions — what scientists call the “cryosphere.”
This year was initially set to run until March 2026. However, in December, the UN went a step further, declaring the next ten years the Decade of Action for Cryosphere Science, extending from the end of the glacier year through 2034. The initiative includes permafrost, polar ice caps, alpine glaciers, and the communities whose lives depend on them.
The Paris gathering where Goodfellow spoke served a dual purpose as a wrap‑up of the IYGP and a launch of work to be done over the next decade. UNESCO also tied the event to World Water Day, even awarding a prize to a water researcher and emphasizing the link between ice and water security, a connection Goodfellow had already begun to explore in her own work. “It was a little bit of reflection on the year and then preparation and launching the decade to come,” she explains.
As a biology education major and John Wesley Honors College student, Goodfellow needed to complete both a senior seminar presentation and a 12‑minute Honors oral presentation. She decided to combine them into one meaningful project. Her talk was titled “Glaciers, Ice Fields, and Permafrost: Preserving Earth’s Ice as a Way of Promoting Climate Justice.”
Rather than present faculty‑led lab research, Goodfellow designed her own project that was both scientific and oriented toward justice. She focused on how rapid changes in the cryosphere affect human lives, especially arctic Indigenous peoples, including the Inuit and villages in Alaska, such as Shishmaref, and mountain communities in alpine regions.
Her research showed how melting glaciers and permafrost disrupt everything from hunting and fishing to housing stability. Thinning sea ice makes traditional sled‑based hunting dangerous, with sleds and dogs at risk of breaking through. Melting permafrost causes coastal cliffs and shorelines to collapse into the sea, forcing homes to tilt, crack, or fall away. And many northern buildings were never engineered for thawing ground, leaving communities without adequate support or relocation funds.
She also highlighted that these communities are often poorer, more vulnerable, and disproportionately Indigenous, yet they contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions. “My argument was that it’s not just an environmental issue,” Goodfellow says. “It’s a humanitarian issue.”
After presenting her project at 抖阴探探App’s Celebration of Scholarship in April 2025, Goodfellow submitted a written version of her work to the IYGP website, which was collecting stories from around the world. She received a generic acknowledgment that her story would be reviewed, but then heard nothing for months. She assumed the submission had gone nowhere.
Then, about six to eight months later, an invitation came through an unexpected channel. “I received a LinkedIn message in December that said, ‘Grace, I read about you on the UN’s webpage. We’re looking for youth to be involved in this panel. Would you be willing to join?’ I thought it was a scam.”
Curious, she went back to the UN website, and, to her surprise, her story had indeed been published. The organizers of a youth‑led side event at the Paris conference had found it and wanted her to participate. After she agreed and her trip was confirmed, someone from UNESCO itself reached out. Since she would already be there, they asked, would she be willing to serve as the youth representative on a main session panel?
They sent her questions and time limits in advance. She prepared her remarks, flew to Paris, and took her seat among scientists, policy leaders, and UN officials. “I’ve never been in a place where so many different people truly from around the world came together for a common cause,” she says.
On the panel, speakers were asked not only about their research but to speak on the bridge between science and action; how scientific understanding can actually lead to change.
For Goodfellow, that bridge is deeply connected to her Christian faith. “For me, the bridge between science and faith has always been curiosity and wonder,” she says. “I’ve always had this fascination with the scientific world, with nature, with the beauty of creation. It leaves you with a feeling you can’t explain. It’s very similar to the awe and wonder you feel in church, where you’re just moved, sometimes to tears, or when you’re praying, and you just feel connected in some way.”
“My curiosity is an act of faith and taking joy in what God has made,” she explains. In a follow‑up virtual presentation to mostly European youth the next day, Goodfellow described a progression she’s seen in her own life:
CURIOSITY → PASSION → ACTION
When something captures your attention — like cryosphere science did for Goodfellow during a summer spent as a concierge in Glacier National Park — you can either push that curiosity aside or let it grow. “The more natural option is to do something,” she says. As questions build, curiosity becomes passion. Passion, over time, leads to action if you’re willing to follow it.
Part of that process, for her, is an act of trust. “I think it’s faith: trusting that God has given us our curiosities for a reason and that He desires to use them for His good,” she reflects.
Goodfellow is convinced that experience and relationships are the most powerful motivators. “The best motivator is just seeing it with your own two eyes or meeting someone,” she says.
That belief has shaped her growing interest in science communication. She wants to help people who may never visit the Arctic understand why glaciers and ice matter — not just for “polar bears and postcards,” she says, “but for families, food systems, and water security.”
One of her personal passion projects has been collecting stories of people who live near or around ice and glaciers. She hopes to tell those stories in order to better convey the lived experience of folk who depend on those natural features and reflect the importance back to the listener. “Just as farmers in Indiana understand how rainfall, soil microbes, and trees affect crops,” she says, “arctic dwellers’ lives are intertwined with disappearing snow and ice.”
Despite her passion, Goodfellow’s path has not been straightforward. She has faced a series of rejections from glacier research internships, specialized lab positions, and even some graduate programs. Further, funding cuts in climate and environment programs have made opportunities scarce. “I had honestly just gotten to the point where I thought I didn’t really see how my passion connects to anything,” she admits. So, she began looking at broader ecology and conservation programs, wondering if there was a future for her specific interest in glaciers.
Then the UNESCO invitation arrived. “I shed a little tear that maybe God wasn’t done with my passion yet,” she says.
Now, even as she continues to wait on graduate school decisions and potential roles in UN working groups for the Decade of Action, Goodfellow feels a renewed sense of direction. She imagines a future in science communication, not necessarily as a classroom teacher, but as a writer, speaker, storyteller, or documentary creator helping others connect their wonder and curiosity to meaningful action. “I would love to be that bridge between people, science, and action one day,” she says.
For 抖阴探探App, her story is a vivid picture of what it can look like when science, faith, and justice meet: a student nourished by curiosity in the field and the classroom, stepping onto a global stage to speak for God’s creation.
