The Expo Went On(line)!

On Friday, April 3, students from their dorm rooms and living rooms joined via Zoom to present their presentations and creative works to judges who were also joining in from all across Minnesota. 

The Expo kicked off at 11:45 where Lilli Ambort, the student lead for the project, kicked us off with a warm welcome and a reminder to be kind to ourselves during this time. From there the races were off! Presenters, judges, Zoom hosts and attendees joined into several different Zoom rooms to watch presentations. Each room had roughly 5-6 presenters for one hour and then another group of 5-6 presenters came in for another hour after. With 29 total presentations, the Expo remained an engaging and stimulating event despite our distance from one another.

Following presentations, a panel with 4 amazing panelists happened.

Here are the panelists:

Learn more about them here:

• Dr. Shanda Demorest
• Ms. Joanna Esther Schneider
• Ms J. Drake Hamilton
• Jose Luis Villasenor

It was an amazing time to have discussion surrounding sustainability and how we can still be living out our sustainable goals even amidst the uncertainty of today. A theme that came up several times as students continued to ask on how to incorporate sustainability into their futures was this idea that sustainability work should not feel intimidating or inaccessible even though it often does. Sustainability does not have to be in your job title for you to pursue it which was an awesome sentiment to be reminded of!

While attendees listened to the panelists, our judges were hard at work judging and giving thoughtful feedback to the students who just presented. They only had a short while before the panel was over and it was time for awards.

Drum roll please!

At 3:30 our online awards ceremony commenced with some words from Energy club’s President Talia.

Lightning Talk Award Winners:

Creative Works Award Winners:

Every presenter who shared their work at The Expo had amazing ideas and it is definitely worthwhile to read up on the project abstracts here.

Thank you to the Sustainability Education team, Energy Club, and many others for making this event possible. A special thank you to Tennant and Waste Wise for sponsoring this year’s generous student prizes

Also a big shout to this year’s student lead for the event: Lilli Ambort! She worked hard and long on this year’s Expo and helped us all make the smooth transition online. Here is what she thought about the event:

 “I am so glad that the Sustainability & Energy Expo successfully transitioned online and was still a great event for presenters, judges, and attendees. I think it’s important to still find opportunities to connect with one another while we’re social distancing, and moving Expo online gave us that opportunity. I was amazed at the student work that was presented, and I hope that next year we can learn from this experience and continue to make Expo even greater!”

Until next year!

If you want to watch student presentations they are available to watch on our YouTube channel.