I attended the CommUnity Conference hosted by the Whitburn Center at UWO on Monday, April 27.

One of the afternoon sessions was titled: Youth Civic Engagement through Environmental Issues – Interactive Roundtables 

Here is the description of the session:

Join students from UWO and Lakeland University and our partner, Root Change, to explore youth civic engagement through the Wisconsin Labs for Environment and Democracy (WiLEAD) Program. Over the course of the semester, student teams have been conducting “lean experiments” on campus and in the community to test approaches to addressing polarizing environmental issues. In this first session, you’ll dive into the issues that students worked on, including road salt, invasive species, water quality, food waste, regenerative agriculture, and indigenous medicinal gardens, and how they chose to engage with the community around their topic. 

There were about a dozen groups from UWO and Lakeland College sharing their projects. I was impressed with the amount of caring and personal investment that the students put into their projects. What was really important was the discussions around the meaningful relationships that were developed while working on these lead experiments. I hope many of these lean experiments can continue to turn into bigger projects that make more impact on the students lives and in our shared civic commons in the Fox Cities.