Friday, April 27th 8:30-2:30 PM
University of MN St Paul Campus

This free event will feature keynote speaker Will Steger and a series of exciting youth led workshops related to environmental sustainability and climate change solutions.

Register Today…

The Will Steger foundation would like to acknowledge and congratulate all of the youth organizers involved in the Chicago Clean Power Coalition on the announced closing of the Crawford and Fisk coal plants. Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) and the Illinois Student Environmental Coalition (ISEC) have been deeply involved in the Coalition and spent countless hours testifying at the State Legislature, organizing in front-line communities, documenting the public health impacts of both plants, and drawing public support for an end to these big polluters. LVEJO, an environmental justice organization based in the Little Village neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, released the following press release.

The Will Steger Foundation is working closely with the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) through our YEA! MN program to connect schools and student leaders with the Minnesota Energy Challenge, a program of CEE.  The goal of this collaboration is to educate Twin Cities metro area students about the importance of energy conservation, inspire student-led action projects, and to motivate schools to find creative and constructive ways to save energy.

The Steger Foundation is proud to partner with Focus the Nation in our mission to educate, empower, and engage a new generation of climate leadership on a local, regional, national, and international scale. A nationally based organization, Focus the Nation (FTN) accelerates the transformation to a clean energy future by fostering connections between generations, and empowering young people through education, civic engagement, and action.

All FTN programming is intensely focused on empowering young people’s imaginative, civic and systems-thinking capacities so they can become powerful agents of change in their own communities. The skills that young people gain through FTN programming can be applied for decades in addressing the root causes that affect our current environmental, social, political and entrepreneurial challenges.

As part of a national program aimed at engaging climate youth leadership across the country, FTN is launching Clean Energy Forums a core component of their part 'Forums-to-Action program.  Aimed at developing new student leaders to drive solution oriented clean energy collaborations between their campuses and communities, the F2A program provides students with leadership skills, energy literacy, experiential learning and professional development.

The following Clean Energy Forums are being hosted in the Midwest this February and are open to the public:

University of Wisconsin Madison, Feb 15th

Through Focus the Nation’s Forums-to-Action Program, a multidisciplinary group of UW-Madison students is planning a clean energy forum for February 15th, 2012. This year’s event will focus on ways the campus and Madison community can speed adoption of energy efficiency and conservation measures in buildings. Students and campus leaders will come together with energy experts, business leaders, and elected officials to identify roadblocks and solutions in this effort to pick the low hanging fruit known as ‘negawatts’. One panel session will seek innovative solutions to get more rental property owners investing in energy efficiency retrofits. A brainstorming session over dinner will inform an action plan which students will implement over the next semester(s). This event represents a great opportunity for the campus and Madison community to come together in addressing an issue of great import.

The event is free and open to the public. It will take place February 15th, 2012 from 3-7pm in Union South, Varsity Hall III.

Who should attend:

• Students or community members interested in energy efficiency, energy policy, or renewable energy
• Business leaders
• Elected officials

Focus the Nation is now accepting applications to launch September 2012 teams. This spring they will be selecting one school in each state across the US to participate in our F2A programming. Sign up to host a forum for 2013.