Before Lights Out for Youth was an organization, a coalition of students, or even an idea, it started with a 10-year-old watching a meteor shower.
In her Idaho backyard, Renata spent her summer nights stargazing. Exceptionally dark skies were a norm in her small town, and seeing the vastness of the universe overhead sparked a fascination with astronomy that only grew as she got older.
However, after moving to an urban metropolitan area, that once pristine view of the stars became blocked by city glow. Wanting to protect the view that inspired her, her initial efforts included joining a community-science dark sky survey and inviting a dark sky expert to present at her school.
At an astrophysics camp during the summer of 2026, Renata met a handful of other students who are just as interested in dark sky preservation as she is. The idea for Lights Out for Youth came to her during a visit to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s light pollution exhibition. She began reaching out to the students she had met, and soon a handful of scattered conversations became a group united by a shared determination to protect the night sky.
The view of the cosmos was Renata’s reason to protect the night. What’s yours?
