With Dave Shaw, Ashley Cooper and Susan Kelly.

Education is a key tool that helps us understand the world around us and act in transformative ways. And yet, there is more to learn beyond traditional education models in order to be most effective. At the heart of it, education for action requires each of us to contribute our brilliance and gifts in order to design our shared future. What might be possible when we transcend conventional teacher-student relationships and form learning communities based on curiosity and collaboration across generations? Creating these kinds of opportunities fosters the emergence of collective intelligence and wise action that is needed to transform our world today. What are the big questions that motivate action across generations? And what questions are we are forgetting to ask? Please help us be wiser together as we learn how education may be used for positive change, for a change!

World Cafe | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

How can we lead our organizations and social change movements to become more adaptive, resilient, locally attuned and life-enhancing? Looking to nature’s wisdom opens us to learning from 3.8 billion years of systems success, and guides us toward leadership patterns, practices and principles that are rooted in sustainability.  This experiential workshop will introduce natural models that can be applied to strategy development and organizational change.

Participants will work with “Life’s Principles” developed by Biomimicry 3.8, and meet natural mentors to help answer their own leadership challenges.

Council Circle | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

With Lilian Hill (Hopi), who has built a successful multi-generational movement to restore the ancient Hopi orchards at Second Mesa; Joe Munroe (Muskoday First Nation), Founder of Muskoday Organic Growers Co-op, who has worked successfully to reverse unemployment with an organic food business model and created a truly healthy economy in Muskoday First Nation in Canada.

Major movement is occurring in indigenous communities to restore traditional indigenous organic gardening and foods.

Indigenous Forum | 4:30pm, Sat

This very cool youth poetry slam has judges, scoring and prizes. Everyone’s invited to participate.

Youth Unity Center | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

Moderated by Atossa Soltani, Founder and Executive Director of Amazon Watch.

The Tent of Inspiration | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

With Jim Sheehan, Envision Spokane; Jeff Clements, Co-Founder of Free Speech for People, author of Corporations Are Not People.

Embassy Suites Private Dining Room | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

With: Ilarion Merculieff; Aleut traditional messenger; Staci Haines, Somatics innovator; Cole, Founder of Brown Boi Project, bridging gender and racial dialogues; Sharon Shay Sloan, Council trainer and community steward.

Both for us as human beings and for many of our non-human relations throughout the natural world, we are complex creatures who express a richly diverse continuum of gender and sexual preferences. Disregarding societal restrictions and pressures, who might we choose to be, given greater freedom of expression?

Manzanita Room | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat

With Gary Paul Nabhan and Peter Warshal

Food security looms as a major flash point globally: Increasing populations, improved wealth in Brazil, India and China, climate change, pesticide-resistant crop diseases, the price of petro-based fertilizers, the dominance of industrial agriculture corporations that are too-big-not-to-fail, GMOs and more. These challenges pose grave threats to national and global food supplies and government stability. Given nature’s constraints of weather, water and soils, what is the role of agro-ecoregion production and trade in supplying seasonal healthy and affordable food? What are the assets, rewards and advantages of local food systems? How can they be designed into practical and prosperous local and regional foodshed economies? In short, how can agro-ecoregional economies provide resilience for local communities for the vagaries of the roller-coaster food systems of the 21st century?

Two leading innovators share their ideas, innovations, dreams, strategies, knowledge and working models that can promote a more local food economy, and a food economy that embodies food security, social equity, a healthy environment, and community wealth, while celebrating biocultural diversity.

Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally celebrated nature writer, founder of Native Seed/SEARCH, teacher, conservation biologist and sustainable agriculture activist who has been called “the father of the local food movement.”

Peter Warshall is an innovative ecologist, Co-Director of the Dreaming New Mexico’s project “The Age of Local Foodsheds and a Fair Trade State,” and has worked internationally and as an elected official on conservation/development issues involving water, agriculture, ranching and wildlife.

Epiphany Theater | 4:30pm-6pm, Sat