BurlingtonGreen has been pleased to support our city's first Environmental Conference FOR Youth BY Youth. Held on October 22 at Robert Bateman High School, over 400 grade 7- 12 participants from schools throughout Burlington participated in this interactive day of eco-learning, inspiration and action!

This For Youth By Youth event was titled  Imprints: Make your Mark; Leave No Trace" emphasizing the need to help the planet by minimizing your ecological footprint and "leaving your mark" in a positive way by leading by example to care for the earth. 

Special guest & renowned naturalist and artist Robert Bateman kicked off the day as the keynote speaker sharing stories of his adventures and efforts to date with a focus on the importance of youth getting out into nature to experience the beauty and lessons learned in our community green spaces.

Participants then ventured off to their choice of 16 eco-focused workshops for the day. They constructed composters for their schools, learned about native tree species during a creek side hike, discovered ways they can reduce their energy use at home and more.

Attending youth even had the opportunity to send an important message to the world’s leaders who will be gathering in Denmark that they want climate change to be taken seriously. 350 is a global initiative with the number that leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide—measured in "Parts Per Million" in our atmosphere. 350 PPM—it's the number humanity needs to get back to as soon as possible to avoid runaway climate change.

All enjoyed a delicious local foods lunch prepared by the Robert Bateman food school and the day concluded with an inspirational presentation by the popular speaker, Joel Hilchey.

Amy Schnurr, the Executive Director of BurlingtonGreen who helped the Youth plan this  event stated “ An important goal of this event was to inspire youth to feel empowered to take action to help the planet locally. We believe this was achieved given all the wonderful feedback that we have received. For example, one teacher wrote “ returning from the conference one of my students said “it was life changing” and two others proceeded to clean their class green cart and garbage can the next day”. These comments alone made all the efforts to plan the event well worth it. For more information about the conference or how you can get involved in helping to support next years youth eco-conference, email General Inquires