The Center for the Environment at Catawba College continues to accept applications for its first annual National Environmental Summit for High School Students, which promises to bring high school students from across the country to the Catawba campus.
The event, "Redesigning Our Future," is an intensive experience for rising high school juniors and seniors who want to learn more about becoming effective environmental leaders.
Sustainability designers, scientists and engineers from the prestigious Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) of Colorado will collaborate with the Center staff and Catawba professors on the summit.
Flyer for CounselorsScheduled for July 20-24, 2011, it will include follow-up activities via the Internet through May 2012. The summit will emphasize whole systems thinking, helping students become collaborative leaders and effective communicators. Summit leaders will provide knowledge and analytical skills that will help the participants return to their schools and communities empowered to have a tangible impact.
One of the distinctive elements of the summit is that it will involve multiple disciplines and Catawba faculty from many departments. Students will explore the concept of environmental leadership through the perspective of their own skills and interest in the arts, humanities, education, business, science and technology. They will learn how essential elements of these varied disciplines – creativity, expression, innovation, research, experimentation and teamwork – are critical to their effectiveness as environmental leaders.
"This summit has an ambitious goal, but it is one that is within our reach," says Center Director John Wear. "We want these young leaders to develop their considerable talents so they can make the world a better place. And that will involve nothing less than redesigning our future."
The problem in the past has often been "a failure in our ability to look at the whole picture and bring all the people together that need to be involved in the decision-making process," Wear says. "We will focus on collaborative leadership skills and effective communication because those are the fundamental tools for successful leaders."
Scholarships are available. For more information, visit www.centerfortheenvironment.org.
The Center for the Environment at Catawba College was founded in 1996 to provide education and outreach centered on prevalent environmental challenges and to foster community-oriented sustainable solutions that can serve as a model for programs throughout the country.
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RELATED CONTENT:
Center for the Environment: Training Environmental Stewards
A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Problem-Solving (blog.rmi.org)
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