Come join the conversation! The Institute on the Environment’s Second Monday series brings together a panel of experts – from within the University and beyond – to ask big questions, discuss collaborative projects, and dive into other cross-cutting sustainability issues.
This fall, we’ll focus on the Big Picture. We’re currently putting together a line-up showcasing work sparked by IonE and connecting them to timely topics and big-picture takeaways.
From Farm Field to Garbage Can
Can solving food waste solve hunger?
Join us Monday, October 14 from 3:45 to 5:00 in the LES Atrium*
Wasted food in Minnesota annually emits the same greenhouse gas emissions as over 685,000 passenger vehicles driven for one year. Nearly half of this food waste occurs in households — and, at the same time, about one in ten Minnesota households is food insecure.
At our first Second Monday of the 2019-2020 academic year, our panelists will discuss the issue of wasted food at the consumer level of the US food system. They will address how much food is wasted, the environmental and social implications of this waste, the intersection of excess food and hunger relief supply chains, and the opportunities they see for changing our food system to better serve all Americans.
The conversation will feature IonE Fellow Hikaru Peterson of the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, Tracey Deutsch of the College of Liberal Arts, and Will Bergstrom, a student member of the UMN’s Food Recovery Network (FRN). Our moderator is Jennifer Schmitt, program director and lead scientist of IonE’s NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise.
*Registered attendees will receive a complimentary registration ($10 value) to the session “Keeping Good Food From Going to Waste” during Food Ag Ideas Week.
On the Front Lines: Environmental Justice in the Classroom
How we’re defining — and teaching — the issues at the U and beyond
Join us Monday, November 11 from 3:45 to 5:00 in LES R-380 (IonE Seminar Rm), Level 3R
Environmental Justice is a contemporary U.S. movement borne of working class and people of color’s grassroots struggles against the inequitable distribution of environmental ills, like toxic pollution, and benefits, like clean natural resources and green spaces. It has since broadened to include resistance to a range of global environmental inequities and transformative enactments of social justice and ecological integrity.
Over the past year, an IonE mini-grant has funded research on environmental justice education at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. The goal of the grant is to increase awareness of environmental justice scholarship, and lay the groundwork for a robust, cutting-edge, and thoroughly community-engaged center or program for environmental and climate justice education and research.
Our panelists will consider opportunities for collaboration across colleges and disciplines, as well as the critical need to elevate historically marginalized knowledge through working reciprocally with communities, and together explore the future of environmental justice at the University of Minnesota and beyond.
The conversation will feature Sam Grant, Assistant Professor and Director with HECUA – Environmental Sustainability Program, Dr. Michelle Garvey, Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies & Sustainability Studies Teaching Specialist, Dania Marin-Gavilan, Voices for Environmental Justice, Undergraduate Student, Sai Powar, Former Student/Alumni of the University of Minnesota, and Jessica Lopez Lyman, Assistant Professor, Chicano and Latino Studies. Our moderator is Christina Lundgren lead on IonE’s Mini-Grant EJ Research at UMN and currently serves as a GreenCorps Member at the City of St. Paul.