Redesigning Our Future

             E very summer, students travel from around the country to attend the National Environmental Summit. In 2012, Meghan Barker was the student who traveled the farthest to attend the Summit, coming all the way from her home state of Colorado. Of the traveling, Meghan says, “It was my first time in NC, so the Summit was . . . a great travel opportunity for me to engage with people who did not grow up in the same region and regional culture as me.” While on the East Coast, Meghan enjoyed discovering what North Carolina’s natural world had to offer and how it differed from her home state of Colorado. She loved spending time outside exploring the Fred Stanback, Jr. Ecological Preserve , and she liked being able to connect with other students during social times in the evening, forming relationships that she still maintains today! Meghan wanted to be a field biologist at the time of the Summit, so she chos...

Savannah and her wolfdog, Mesa I f there is anyone who could give Dr. Doolittle a run for his money, it would be Savannah Spratt. Savannah, an attendee of the first-ever National Environmental Summit in 2011, has always known she wanted to work with animals. “For as long as I can remember, even when I was a kid, I always knew that was something I wanted to do.” Growing up, she was exposed to subjects of the environment constantly through her school’s own nature trail, natural history museum, and butterfly sanctuary. Throughout high school, she remained involved with her interests through environmental clubs and by volunteering at Friends of Animals, a local animal shelter. “I just feel like it was ingrained in me as a kid. And I was one of the few kids from that school who became really interested and kept up with that sort of thing. […] I was always keeping myself busy trying to be a biologist and an activist for as long as I can remember.” In 2011, Savannah atte...