Redesigning Our Future

  Students at the Environmental Summit 2013 took some time out to create some art on Wednesday night when showers rolled in. "Showers" may be an understatement. Along with the thunder, there was quite the light show with the lightning.      It has rained every day at camp. In fact, it has rained every day in North Carolina for 18 days straight according to the nightly news (19 counting today - only sprinkles so far). This is not typical.   Oh well. Summit campers do not let a little or a lot of rain damper their spirits or creativity. The ice cream truck just pulled around back, and some summit attendees captured nature with paint.     Here we have some very colorful and cheerful looking flowers. I'm not sure what kind of flowers we have here, but they are certainly pretty. This I believe may be one of the deeper puddles from the evening. If every cloud has a silver lining, then every puddle should have a pretty mermaid an...

By: Katie Trischman Our Camper of Interest: Ariana Nicholson of Durham, North Carolina   Want to get involved? Go to NCSCA's facebook or their website ! A picture from NCSCA's website It is without a doubt that every person attending the summit is passionate about the environment, but one girl in particular has found a medium to express her passion; she is an important member of the steering committee in the North Carolina Students for Climate Action (NCSCA for short). The main goals of the NCSCA are to raise awareness about climate change and encourage youth to take action such as attending clean up events or lobbying. And Ariana Nicholson is directly in the middle of all the action.  Ariana has had her fair share of experiences in raising awareness for climate change and has possessed a passion for nature for as long as she can remember. However, she never actually did anything until she went to the Outdoor Academy in the 10th grade. Th...

By: Katie Trischman What We Did   The Environmental Summit of 2013 began its first day in Catawba's 189-acre ecological preserve to study a subject called biomimicry. Don't worry; that term sounded foreign to us as well before we began our geocaching adventure. With only a map and a GPS, each group set out to find their own sequence of geocache stations and slowly discover the possibilities of biomimicry.  Biomimicry is taking inspiration from nature and solving current issues with these models from nature. It sounds so surprisingly simple, yet humans have remained trapped in their ways of doing things for thousands of years. Where do we look for our solutions, and how do we translate the natural world into industry? We not only found inspiration in each station but also all around us in the marshy woodland of Catawba's ecological preserve .   What We Learned   Our amphibious friend: the salamander Our trek through the reserve wasn't all mo...