The Swamp School

Ecological Restoration & Sustainable Design Un-Conference 2010

May 3, 2010
North Carolina State University
McKimmon Center
Raleigh, North Carolina

The Swamp School is sponsoring the first environmental Un-Conference in North Carolina. The intent of this event is to discus local environmental issues with the goal of developing solutions that can be implemented outside the conference. This is an open format so the topics will vary. However, the focus is on environmental and ecological issues and includes:

• New Wetland Delineation Manuals

• Private sector mitigation banking

• In-lieu fee banking

• New stream restoration approaches

• Green Jobs

• Carbon neutral initiatives

• Sustainable design

• Green Building

The topics should focus on North Carolina and be succinct enough to cover in a one hour session. We anticipate 4 sets of sessions running concurrently with 3 sets of sessions in the morning and 3 in the afternoon for a total of 24 sessions for the day. The aforementioned topics are just suggestions and many more can and need to be added.

What is an un-conference?

The un-conference model emerged from the popularity of “self-organizing” BarCamps, and Open Space informal meetings, where the agenda is set by the attendees, on the spot. People come to ‘camp’ events interested in common issues and ready to share.

There are a few principles to an un-conference:

1. Anyone can introduce a discussion topic for a session everyone is expected to engage, participate and contribute.
2. If you hate public speaking, offer to take notes and blog them for everyone to share, or find another creative way to add something.
3. If you find yourself somewhere that you are not comfortable, follow the “Rule of Two Feet”: use your own two feet to move somewhere else where you can contribute.

A Wiki has been set up ahead of the conference to help organize the sessions. Participants are encouraged to contribute to the Wiki by adding conference topics and uploading abstracts. The Wiki serves as the basis of how the day is organized and provides some upfront discussion topics.

Discussion Topics

Each session will need one individual to start the discussion. This is first done by posting the session topic on the Wiki along with an abstract of the issue.

For Example:

Session Topic: The Business of Green.

Participants in this session will explore economic opportunities in the sustainability movement. Topics may include job creation, the marketing of green building products and services, and return on investment for green strategies.

A Green Business is not simply a matter of compliance or risk management. Business is increasingly recognizing the many competitive advantages and business opportunities to be gained from eco-sustainability and green marketing.

World-wide evidence indicates people are concerned about the environment and are changing their behavior accordingly. As a result there is a growing market for sustainable and socially responsible products and services. The types of businesses that exist, the products they produce and their approaches to marketing are changing.

Session Moderators

The moderator will present the discussion topic to the group. This is a brief overview of the topic and is not intended to be a presentation. From that point the discussion begins.

Each session should develop action items for participants to work on after the meeting. The moderator’s role will be to keep the discussion focused on the topic and encourage the development of action items to move the issue beyond the Un-Conference.

Participants

Each participant is expected to productively participate in each session. This can be accomplished by either engaging in the session dialog, blogging, Tweeting , or updating the Un- Conference Wiki. Each session will need someone to take notes so that others who are not able to participate in the session, can benefit from the discussion. The event venue has high speed WiFi to facilitate real time blogging, Tweeting, adding to the Wiki, etc. Participants are also encouraged to upload notes to the Wiki or link their blogs to the Wiki after the Un-Conference.

Event Sponsors

The Swamp School will be organizing the event with the assistance of the NCSU Office of Professional Development. We also are looking for help in several ways.

1. We need to attract attendees to the event
2. We need session moderators
3. We need some help covering costs. There are no paid speakers. However, we need to cover the use of the McKimmon Center, advertising and lunch. We will also have table displays for the sponsors .

The date of the event is May 3, 2010 and will be held at NCSU’s McKimmon Center.

If you are able to help us out or are just interested in attending, please check out our Wiki and feel free to add to it. It can be found at: http://swampschool.org/mediawiki/

If you have any questions, please free to call Marc Seelinger at 919-302-6900 or email: marc@swampschool.org

Please pass this information on to anyone you think might be interested in this event.