Frankly, it’s hard to find the words to describe my guest, Arlian Ecker. To say he is a Planet Earth activist and young changemaker does not seem to do him justice. Arlian’s story began in Australia when, on his eleventh birthday, he watched three rehabilitated sea turtles being released back into the ocean and learned about the harm plastic pollution had caused them. The experience left him with a question: What could one kid possibly say or do that would make other people care? His mother, international documentary filmmaker Karin Ecker, responded by picking up her camera. Together, they created a 22-minute documentary film titled Plastic Alarm, and what began on one Australian beach grew into nearly a decade of filmmaking, scientific inquiry, environmental action, public speaking, and peer-to-peer education. Arlian, now age 20, has brought his work to more than 350 schools. his Plastic Free Boy site reports that his work has reached more than 1.5 million young people. At age thirteen, he addressed 130 mayors and some 1,400 delegates at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit and Mayors’ Forum. His work has taken him from the Great Barrier Reef to European glaciers and the Danube River, where he has collaborated with scientists, schools, governments, universities, businesses, and communities. Arlian is not a “student guest” in the conventional sense. After an early education that included traditional schooling and some homeschooling, he did not continue into a traditional high school. However, he is not an exception to this year's students only commitment because his life offers a living answer to the other question contained in our title: What could be school? For Arlian, the world became his classroom; protecting the planet became both curriculum and purpose, and he began learning and teaching at the very same time. This conversation was set up by a colleague, Kyle Wagner, who deepened his practice of student-centered, project-based learning as a humanities teacher and interdisciplinary team leader at High Tech High in San Diego. Kyle interviewed Arlian for his own podcast in 2025 and generously brought the two of us together. This will not simply be a conversation about plastic in the oceans. It is a philosophical conversation about education in the wild—and what can happen when a young person’s concern is treated as the beginning of serious work. As always, my gratitude to my peerless editor, Evan Kurohara, our creative consultant, Mel Ching.

Links:

Elite Changemaker Program

ABC News

APCS Summit

Arlian LinkedIn