Workshops, Panels & Round Tables

In addition to  national plenary speakers, presented via DVD, conference participants will experience workshops with regional experts and facilitated dialogues to deepen connection with the topics and other attendees.

Saturday, October 24

Round Table (12:15-1:00 pm)
Bring your lunch and take this opportunity to hear about an important topic of the day and engage in facilitated dialogue with your fellow Round Table participants.

  • Joel Albers- Topic: Health Care

Workshops (1:00-2:00 pm)

  • Angie Bourdaghs (MN Pollution Control Agency)- "Green Business Basics: What Shade of Green Works for your Business?": How can I green my business? Overcome uncertainty by empowering yourself with useful, locally produced green business information.
  • Curt McNamara- "Buckminster Fuller: Ideas for Today": Bucky Fuller inspired whole generations of designers, from Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Review) to William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle) to John Todd (Living Machines). However, many view his ideas and philosophy as complex. This workshop will present Fuller's "rules for design" in a form that anyone can use.
  • Christie Manning(Macalester College), Elise Amel (Univ of St. Thomas) and Britain Scott (Univ of St. Thomas)- "Tips from Psychology for Empowering Sustainability": The psychology of sustainable behavior offers practical recommendations to empower yourself and those around you to live more sustainably.  
  • John Arnold - "Legal Rights for Nature": Come hear a summary of the issues and ideas, along with general legal rights that a few countries and local governments in the U.S. have already established for the environment.
  • Kaia Svien - "Stepping into our Ecological Selves": Each life stage brings unique vision. Grounded in classic archetypes, we’ll tap our reservoirs of knowledge to liberate these dynamics.  
  • John Stelzner (Minnesota Conservation Corps), Dave Gagne (Urban Boatbuilders), Sarah Holm (Oragnic Valley, Generation O), Sarah Graves (Univ. of MN, Ecowatch) and Amelia Kahn (Como High School, Green Eyez)- "Youth for a Change": How are youth making a difference in their communities?  Representatives from local and regional organizations discuss their current projects and best practices for youth engagement in conservation, community service, work force development, organic farming, activism and more!  Learn about barriers and opportunities for youth development, and hear how youth in Minnesota are contributing to a sustainable future.

Geographic Breakout Session (3:45-5:30 pm)

  • Sean Gosiewski (Alliance for Sustainability): Meet with Bioneers participants from your community to plan your next steps to realize your community vision! Community volunteers from Minneapolis, St. Paul and the north, south, east and west metro will facilitate small group conversations for you to get to know others from your zip code at the conference.  Together you will  
         - brainstorm a shared vision of what you want your community to become,
         - create an asset map of sustainability efforts, groups, leaders and resources in
           your community
         - plan your next steps to stay in touch and to get started with a small action
           project.
    At 5pm we will all gather together in the auditorium to share the results of our geographic clusters and plan next steps for our larger community network.
     

Sunday, October 25

Round Table (12:15-1:00 pm)
Bring your lunch and take this opportunity to hear about important topics of the day and engage in facilitated dialogue with your fellow Round Table participants.

  • Daniel Nidzgorski- Topic: Household Ecosystems
  • Barbara Parks- Topic: Careers for a Sustainable World

Workshops (1:00-2:00 pm)

  • Marilyn Cuneo, Diane Katsiaficas, Meena Mangalvedhekar and Liz  Dodson (Women and Water Rights: Rivers of Regeneration)- "Women and Water Rights": What does that mean to an American or to an African?  Why is there a difference?  What is the connection?
  • Kathleen Schuler and Peter Starzynski (Healthy Legacy)- "Hidden Toxins- What YOU Can Do": Join Healthy Legacy in discussing public policies to phase out the use of toxic chemicals in everyday consumer products.
  • Daniel Halsey (Permaculture & Polyculture Design)- "Rebuilding Eden on Eden's Terms": Permaculture Principles guide practitioners in designing life systems to solve or mitigate modern issues of climate change, peak oil and social problems. The presentation will also introduce attendees to the applications of Permaculture in their daily lives.
  • Jim Lovestar - "The Spirituality of Sustainability":  Most people know the basics of sustainability. In this workshop, we will utilize music, movement, aspects of the natural world and circle sharing to call forth the creativity of each participant.  Each person will be invited to express the direction the spirit is leading him/her to care for creation. Each of us and all of us are here for a great purpose.  Let's go!
  • Burt Berlowe, Samantha Merrit Smart and Ephraim Eusebio- "Compassionate Rebel Bioneers: Stories of Ordinary People Saving the Planet": Come hear inspiring stories from other Bioneers and explore how to use your personal story as a tool for building a more sustainable world.
  • Loretta Jaus and Sarah Holm (Organic Valley) - "Traveling Toward Sustainability - Lessons from the Farm": Go on this virtual tour of two area organic dairy farms, ‘Turn left past the barn, go down the lane,’ and follow Sarah and Loretta in their efforts to develop thriving farm systems that align with the natural health and integrity of the surrounding ecological and social landscape.  Learn how practices like good soil management, crop rotation and pasturing deliver benefits of animal health, quality food and healthier communities.

Panel (4:00-5:00 pm)

  • David Paxon (World Population Balance), Karen Shragg and Ed Barry - "Population Conversation: What is Sustainable?" The environmental movement needs to embrace population as a core challenge that is undermining advances on all other issues. Due to massive population increases, vital resources – oil, fresh water, topsoil and farmland, ocean fish stocks, rainforest and many others – are already declining at alarming rates. Green technologies will not stop resource depletion, because the population overshoot is already so large. In order to avoid inhumane population reduction – more war, famine and disease – it is crucial that we humanely and compassionately reduce births to allow population to decline to a truly sustainable level.

    Our panel’s goal is to simply put the facts on the table in a way that can be fully understood in relation to your commendable efforts to save this beautiful planet.