Topics of presentations and discussions:
- Sustainable Development and non profits: Derek Tepe and Aiste Manfredini.
- Large scale sustainability: Denise Blankenberger, BSU architecture student. Blankenberg will focus on measures that Singapore has taken to implement sustainability on the larger scale.
- Permaculture: Ball State permaculture Initiative.
- Mountaintop removal and storytelling: Matt Litten, Ball State University NREM graduate student.
- Environmental Policy and Law: Amber Janzen; Crystal Allen; and Sue Errington, the representative of the Muncie District.
- Eco Activism: How to organize a march or movement.
- Indiana's Climate Action Plan
- Integrating sustainability and education: Jody Rosenblatt Naderi, professor in CAP.
Indiana’s collegiate sustainability conference has moved its home from Indianapolis to Ball State this year.
The third annual Eco Summit will be held for the first time at from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday Nov. 1 at Ball State’s L.A. Pittenger Student Center on the second floor. The event is free and open to the public
Speeches and presentations from student leaders, government officials and sustainability leaders from academia and the private sector will act as the foundation for the event, but open discussions will be its cornerstone.
At the first Eco Summit in the spring of 2013, 150 people attended and the second, in the fall of 2013, brought in 90. It is expected to draw around 120 this year, Poyser said.
The summit was first started at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
“We noticed it was almost all Ball State students,” Manfredini said. “So we decided to move it out here. Since we are one of the most sustainable campuses in the state, it just makes sense.”
However, the conference will be more student centric, Aiste Manfredini, director of the Eco Summit, said.
“Most of the presenters are Ball State students,” she said.
A big change for the Eco Summit this year is the shift in focus from lectures and the negative aspects of sustainability.
“Last year there were three sessions with different discussions, and I would have liked to see more student involvement and less of a focus on negatives things,” Manfredini said.
Jim Poyser, executive director of Earth Charter Indiana, aims to do this with incorporating more arts into the summit.
“We have a theatre director from Butler [University] coming to share a play on sustainability,” he said.
However, Poyser said he was looking forward to the conference for its chance to shape the next generation of adults in American.
“I’d like to see more student involvement and leadership [in sustainability],” Poyser said. “We are on the cusp of a profound change in our daily lives [and] I have noticed this generation is very community friendly where mine was about growing up and owning things.”
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