30th NSW Environmental Education Conference a great success!

Held at North Sydney Boys High School on 26-27 September and attended by over 170 people, the 30th NSW EE Conference was a great success. Keynote speakers included students Ginny Wong, Amogh Sarda and Emelia Milliner who inspired us with stories of what the environment means to them and how they got involved in their schools. Les Robinson (Enabling Change) surprised some of us by saying we should plan less (and test more), and Roz Hall (NSW OEH) who wasn’t too sure about that and wanted to make sure we remembered to monitor and evaluate. Paul Brown (UNSW) highlighted the importance of building community resilience, and Erland Howden (Greenpeace) reminded us that we need empowerment as well as education. Of course, there was much more to their speeches than that for those lucky enough to be there!

There was a huge choice of topics with concurrent streams targeting students, teachers and community educators. There were field trips, creative spaces, a poster session and a World Café… and throughout all of it students volunteering from local schools, in particular North Sydney Boys High (NSBH), were actively involved in planning, set-up, management and even giving presentations and Chairing sessions! A HUGE thank you to all the students, NSBH for hosting, the sponsors especially NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, and the Conference Organising Committee.

The next NSW Environmental Education Conference will be held in September-October 2013 – pencil it in!