Redesigning Our Future

By: Emilee Rae Hibshman Top Row: Devin Kehoe, Misa Harashima, Holly Kuhn Bottom Row: Lexi Burns, Emilee Rae Hibshman, Makayla Utt, Serena Musselwhite This year many students who visited the Redesigning Our Future at Catawba College, decided to return for a second year, and one even returned for her third summer in a row! Makayla Utt, Emilee Rae Hibshman, Serena Musselwhite, Misa Harashima, and Devin Kehoe returned for their second year in a row. Holly Kuhn returned for her third year, this time bringing her younger sister, Mary, to experience all of the fun that happens here as well. As second-year campers, the group has some slightly different activities they participate in. On Wednesday morning, the whole camp did a biomimicry activity in the Stanback Ecological Preserve, but the second year participants instead went searching for salamanders. During this activity, they flipped logs to look for salamanders, but sadly, they returned empty handed. Makayla Utt and Seren...

Green Ink Bloggers - Redesigning the Future 2015 Here are your Environmental Summit bloggers for 2015 - Chloe Fedor, Misa Harashima, Annebelle Nagy, Kayla Blackburn, and Margaret Bowerman. You can look through or search the blog to find the stories they shared from Redesigning the Future. The ladies also put together a poster to showcase their work and spoke with campers at the "What I Learned" showcase about blogging and sharing news and stories. Green Ink Bloggers Final Night Poster Counselors for Green Ink Focus Group were Hannah Davis and Mary Scott Norris. Both are students at Catawba College. Hannah will be the student college newspaper editor next year. Hannah Davis and Mary Scott Norris Thank you to all the high school Summit bloggers and to the staff counselors for helping document, save, and share the experiences, learning, and fun of the Environmental Summit.

Getting Ready to Open Cafe Kudzu Members of "Invasive Alien Plants and Animals: Friend or Foe to the Environment" led by Dr. Jay Bolin always harvest young kudzu leaves and then deep fry the kudzu leaves during a fun learning activity at Redesigning the Future. At the end of the week, the environmental campers from the "Invasive" group make fried kudzu and other invasive species specials to share with fellow campers during the end of camp "What We Learned" showcase. This year, Bolin's group of campers went all out by setting up a full blown cafe and serving a variety of dishes ranging from kudzu quiche to a savory soup. They of course shared their fried kudzu too. Ready or Not - It's Time for the Doors to Open on the Cafe The "Invasive" group campers work hard getting all the food ready in a small campus kitchen and then set up for serving. When the camp crowd arrives, it's pedal to the metal getting samples of salad, s...

Dan Couchenour Returns to Catawba to Inspire Environmental Campers Dan Couchenour graduated from Catawba College last year (2014) and was invited to the National Summit for the Environment to tell high school students that they really can impact on the world even at a young age. As a student at Catawba College, Couchenour was a West Scholar, a member of the lacrosse team, and an Environmental Steward. Clearly he was a very busy college student. Environmental Stewards were challenged to come up with projects to benefit the environment. That can be a big task at any age. What can you do? How can you make it happen? Couchenour's idea was to reduce campus water usage and use the money saved to set up a Bike Share program. Yes. This does sound like a real challenge. Can you really get fellow college students to voluntarily cut back on water waste? Yes you can. Couchenour proved it. The first step to pulling off a big project is to enlist the help of everyone involved said Co...

Camp Counselors Getting a Little Bug Eyed Yes. Being a counselor at the National Environmental Summit is a great and rewarding experience. You not only work and earn money for your college expenses, you get to learn more about environmentalism right along with the high school campers. Days are long. You're up around 6 am and may get to bed at 11 pm or midnight. Then there are those 2 am room checks. Coffee becomes your best friend even if you don't like coffee. Here you see some of our counselors trying to hold their eyes open. Okay. They are joking around, but being a counselor is pretty intense as these counselors can tell you. Is it worth it? You bet! Thanks to Deep Dave for the funny photo and to all the counselors for taking a summer week to work at Redesigning the Future. They are making a difference too.

Holly Kuhn and Savannah Herrera Holly Kuhn was one of eight returning campers to Redesigning the Future 2015. You know campers had a good time when they opt to return for another second (or even third) year. Holly said she loved the camp and her Focus Group "A Backbone for Conservation" so much that she talked her friend, Savannah Herrera, into signing up for camp and joining her this year. Holly said she enjoyed Dr. Joe Poston's section so much that she wanted to take it again and share it with her buddy. Both young ladies were having a great time this session, and Holly said she'd enjoy coming back a third year. We think Holly would make a great National Environmental Summit counselor one of these days. She certainly has a passion for the Center for the Environment summer summit.

President of Catawba College Brien Lewis, Founder of the Center of the Environment Dr. John Wear and Heather White, Executive Director of Environmental Working Group  Dr. John Wear, Director of the Center for Environment at Catawba College, welcomed Heather White and Catawba College President Brien Lewis to the 2015 Designing the Future Summit for high school students. President Lewis noted that Catawba College is an award-winning green college. The college is currently working on a solar panel project which is the largest academic solar panel project in the state of North Carolina. Panels on top of campus buildings will save money and resources over the years which is good for all of us. Some other projects Lewis mentioned were the sustainable garden on campus and a bike share program for students. These, along with other projects like turning cafeteria waste into compost, make Catawba College an excellent college to major in environmental science or studies. Waste...