Redesigning Our Future

Heather White - Keynote Speaker - Environmental Summit 2015  By Kayla Blackburn As the 2015 Redesigning Our Future: National Environmental Summit commenced on July 7th, campers had the opportunity to listen to this year's phenomenal keynote speaker, Heather White. Heather is a nationally recognized expert on environmental law, and she currently holds a position as the Executive Director of the EWG (Environmental Working Group). She has been involved with Congress, as well as in many magazines like The New York Times. "I 'Heart' Nature"   During her speech on how she reached her level of success and achievement, Heather reasoned her interest in the environmental field with her love of science, and, namely, nature. Having spent her whole life admiring magnificent landscapes in the many places she has called home, Heather White showed her love for nature in many excursions, including the climbing of Mount Kilimanjaro. Heather went on to ...

by Emily Pieper Focusing on the Big Picture By Emily Pieper T oday bright and early at 7:30 a.m., this was the lively scene at breakfast of our third day here at Redesigning 2012 . When I was capturing this, I actually was only testing out how well my phone's panoramic mode would work when everyone was moving around. When I uploaded it to my computer after, I experienced one of those enlightening light bulb moments when everything collides in your mind and suddenly becomes crystal clear. W hat I realized was that, in a way, this simple photo represented the underlying theme of the summit: Whole Systems Thinking. Basically what I think this phrase means is that to solve problems you have to step back and look at the whole picture. Sometimes we can get so focused on one aspect of an issue that we miss other parts. Everyone has done this at least once in their life, and I realized that I certainly have when I talked to Doc Hendley after his inspiring presentation...

Doc Hendley at Redesigning Our Future: Summit for High School Students 2012 Our keynote speaker at the Environmental Summit was Doc Hendley - founder of Wine to Water - a program to bring clean sustainable water to children across the globe. Be sure to check out the  Doc Hendley interview conducted by Austin Fisher immediately following the presentation.