I am honored to be visiting the Green Meadow Waldorf School as part of their week-long Sustainability workshop

On Monday, March 21st I am scheduled to appear as the keynote speaker for the Green Meadow Waldorf School’s week-long sustainability workshop. Throughout the week high school students will be taking part in a variety of activities that they envisioned themselves, many of which explore the cultural and creative aspects of sustainability. My job will be to provide a scientific foundation for their consideration of sustainability. I plan to discuss how important it is to consider the quantitative nature of sustainability and to discuss ways that scientists have tried to identify the sustainability challenges that human civilization faces. After my introduction to the scientific nature of sustainability, students will break into groups to consider solutions to sustainability challenges and identify what scientific questions they need answers to in order to know what solutions are most needed and most effective as we try to achieve a sustainable civilization.

I am super-honored to be asked to do this keynote address and lead this discussion. My first career was as a middle school teacher and I miss the many joys of working with secondary-school students. I have some basic familiarity with the Waldorf School model, but I have never taught in this context so I am excited to see what kinds of ideas and motivations students bring to my visit.