Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium (PERC)

Student Sustainability Symposium: A Climate for Change

Hosted by: Chatham University

Friday, April 1, 2016

Undergraduate and graduate students of PERC universities and other universities are invited to submit abstracts for student panel presentations, posters, and round table discussions for the PERC 2016 student sustainability symposium. The symposium will provide an opportunity for students to present their sustainability related research, co-curricular projects, creative works, action projects and community initiatives, and to network with students across the state to promote sustainability collaborations.

Abstracts must have clear connections to sustainability, which may include social, economic and/or environmental dimensions. They may be about completed work or projects that are in progress. Priority will be given to abstracts from students attending PERC Member Institutions, but submissions are welcome from students of other institutions as well. Proposers may submit only one abstract for each category described below (Panel Discussion 1, Panel Discussion 2, Poster Presentation, Round Table Discussions). Proposers may be listed as a co-author on abstracts submitted by others.* To apply to more than one category please provide the necessary additional abstracts in Abstract #2 & #3.

DEADLINE: March 21, 2016

For more information or clarification please contact:
Joshua Lewis
Graduate Assistant
Chatham University
joshua.lewis@chatham.edu

Student Panels : Two student panel sessions will occur during the student conference. Each panel discussion will include 4 presentations; these can be individual or group projects (groups are encouraged have no more than two presenters). During the presentation each group will have 8 minutes to speak, followed by an open question and answer segment. The presentation room will have technology for projecting slides and video from a flashdrive. The topics for the two panels are shown below. Submissions are encouraged from any project or piece of research that address at least one of the questions asked, but successful abstracts will address multiple aspects of the prompt.

● Panel Discussion 1: Social impacts of climate change and its mitigation

Present on a project or research that has examined or uncovered social attitudes or implications about climate change or its mitigation. Describe your work and its findings and share with us what you think the implications of those findings are. What might they mean for future action on climate change? What further research do they prompt?

● Panel Discussion 2: Small projects, big impact

Present on a small-scale project or research that aims to lower impacts on climate change. What changes have you made, or what have you been monitoring at your campus or locally based projects. Tell us about the savings it has created, and how it is projected to continue to make an impact as the project continues. How do the carbon reducing measures work? How could you see this small project scaling up to make a larger impact in the future?  

Students are invited to propose topics for roundtable discussions. There is no limit to the topics as long as they are broadly within the sustainability field. It is expected that each proposer would provide a small number of focused discussion questions and intended outcomes, facilitate a one hour discussion among a small group of Symposium participants, and coordinate production of a brief report on outcomes of the discussion.

Posters: Any student(s) who have completed a project or paper that has considered, aimed to reduce, studied, or focused on climate change in any capacity can apply to present a poster. We want to know how climate change has affected your project, how has it shaped your work, and/ or what you have discovered. Those accepted will compete for prizes including best overall presentation, best content, and creative execution voted on by fellow conference attendees and a jury.

* required

* Optional

* Optional