Let's Talk Sustainability

Me (left) and co-worker presenting in SL

This morning, my co-worker and I presented our upcoming project called “Let’s Talk Sustainability” (LTS) in Second Life.  LTS is an intensive summer program I’m leading for 15 New York City high school youth who will be learning about topics related to sustainability and developing 3 talk shows.  The shows will air before a live studio audience in the fall in the virtual world of Second Life.  

The youth will develop expertise regarding sustainability, online broadcasting, and virtual world construction.  They’ll also be able to meet with and interview scientists and other STEM-related professionals (both in-person and virtually), and produce all the materials needed for their talk shows, including games to engage the audience, scripts, interview questions, pre-produced videos, etc.

I’ll be meeting with students Mondays-Thursdays for full days over a period of 5 weeks, which is intense, but luckily, I have some great colleagues and an intern helping me out!

We presented about our virtual youth education project at the Nonprofit Commons to a very supportive and eager audience.  Some pics from our presentation below:

View of audience

My hope for the program that is that the youth will learn more about sustainability and also want to learn more after the program ends.  I’m also hoping that they will connect what they learn to their everyday choices and that they will educate their peers and communities to influence them to make better choices as well.   

Click here for the full chat log.  Thanks Rik for inviting us!