Land & Water Workshops
Land & Water Workshops
Workshop One: Respect, Responsibility, and Resilience in the Wilderness
Speaker: Cynthia Perry, Raven's Wood Outdoor School for Renegades
What will you learn?
Workshop Description:
Let’s move learning to the out-of-doors! Experience hands-on how the use of real tools in a group builds camaraderie, confidence, and resilience. Let's whittle together and let your whole self experience a fresh method of engaging youth and developing trust. Youth are our combined futures, and we need them to trust themselves, and develop a resilient inner self.
Speaker Bio:
Cindy Perry, M.Ed (Cambridge College): In 1994, Cindy became a teacher because she always hated school; it was, well, boring. She believed kids were not being taught how they should, through play, hands-on activities, and making real-life connections to everything they learn. After raising two children, teaching for 22 years in Montessori, public, private, and community schools, and then, spending six years as the One Planet Afterschool and Summer Camp Programs Site Director in Tunbridge and Sharon, Cindy has gained the knowledge and experience to 'pass it on' via Raven's Wood Outdoor School for Renegades.
Speaker: Cynthia Perry, Raven's Wood Outdoor School for Renegades
What will you learn?
- How using real tools helps kids develop
- How being outside year-round and immersion in the elements builds character and confidence for children
- Why our youth need to play and work hard outside
Workshop Description:
Let’s move learning to the out-of-doors! Experience hands-on how the use of real tools in a group builds camaraderie, confidence, and resilience. Let's whittle together and let your whole self experience a fresh method of engaging youth and developing trust. Youth are our combined futures, and we need them to trust themselves, and develop a resilient inner self.
Speaker Bio:
Cindy Perry, M.Ed (Cambridge College): In 1994, Cindy became a teacher because she always hated school; it was, well, boring. She believed kids were not being taught how they should, through play, hands-on activities, and making real-life connections to everything they learn. After raising two children, teaching for 22 years in Montessori, public, private, and community schools, and then, spending six years as the One Planet Afterschool and Summer Camp Programs Site Director in Tunbridge and Sharon, Cindy has gained the knowledge and experience to 'pass it on' via Raven's Wood Outdoor School for Renegades.
Workshop Two: Organizing in Flint (MI)
Speaker: San Juana Olivares
During this workshop, Keynote San Juana Olivares will speak about the challenges of information not being translated for the Hispanic/Latino community in Flint, MI. Any information regarding the switch to the Flint River, lead in the water, and such was all in English. Information was finally translated in the beginning of 2016 almost 2 years after the switch and months after high levels of lead were in the water.
Speaker: San Juana Olivares
During this workshop, Keynote San Juana Olivares will speak about the challenges of information not being translated for the Hispanic/Latino community in Flint, MI. Any information regarding the switch to the Flint River, lead in the water, and such was all in English. Information was finally translated in the beginning of 2016 almost 2 years after the switch and months after high levels of lead were in the water.
Workshop Three: Community Bill of Rights
Speaker: Michelle Sanborn, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
What will you learn?
Workshop Description:
In this workshop, we take an in-depth look at how political and legal structures have been set up to protect the interests of an elite wealthy minority, at the expense of the majority of people and nature. We’ll look at how corporations have received more rights and protections than real people and ecosystems living in communities and we’ll look at how communities have pushed back against these oppressive structures to reclaim local democracy, and at the state level with a proposed Community Rights Amendment.
Speaker Bio:
Michelle became a community rights activist to protect her rural town of Alexandria, NH from multiple industrial projects through a Rights-based Ordinance in 2013. Now she organizes across NH, supporting the work of the NHCRN, to build CELDF’s organizing framework to the state level. Free time is spent with family and creating music.
Speaker: Michelle Sanborn, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
What will you learn?
- Who really decides what happens in your community
- How it got that way
- What you can do about it
Workshop Description:
In this workshop, we take an in-depth look at how political and legal structures have been set up to protect the interests of an elite wealthy minority, at the expense of the majority of people and nature. We’ll look at how corporations have received more rights and protections than real people and ecosystems living in communities and we’ll look at how communities have pushed back against these oppressive structures to reclaim local democracy, and at the state level with a proposed Community Rights Amendment.
Speaker Bio:
Michelle became a community rights activist to protect her rural town of Alexandria, NH from multiple industrial projects through a Rights-based Ordinance in 2013. Now she organizes across NH, supporting the work of the NHCRN, to build CELDF’s organizing framework to the state level. Free time is spent with family and creating music.
Workshop Four: Think outside the sink - Organizing on PFAS contamination and drinking water in New England
Speaker: Shaina Kasper (Toxics Action Center), Andrea Amica (Testing for Pease), and Dr. Laurel Schaider (Silent Spring Institute)
What will you learn?
What is the chemical class called PFAS and why are they harmful for human health?
What should I do if I am concerned about my drinking water?
What is happening throughout New England to fight back?
Workshop Description:
PFAS, or polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a large group of man-made toxic chemicals. (PFAS are sometimes also called PFCs, or perfluorinated compounds.) In recent years, some PFAS chemicals have been found at high levels in drinking water systems around the world. They impact at least 15 million Americans drinking water. In this workshop we will answer the following questions: What are PFAS? How are/were we exposed to PFAS? What do we know about the health effects of PFAS exposure? Participants will also learn how their community can respond to PFAS contaminations to make sure it does not happen again in the future.
Speaker Bio:
Shaina Kasper is Toxics Action Center's Vermont State Director and New Hampshire Community Organizer. Shaina works out of the Montpelier office to assist local community groups to clean up hazardous waste sites, and promote clean water, safe energy, and zero waste. Before joining Toxics Action Center three years ago, Shaina worked on economic justice, good governance campaigns, fossil fuel divestment, and other campaigns with Progressive Massachusetts, the Raise Up Campaign, and many local state legislative and gubernatorial campaigns. She went to the United World College in New Mexico, Macalester in Minnesota, and did the JOIN for Justice Jewish Organizing Fellowship in Massachusetts. In her free time, Shaina organizes with IfNotNow Jews against the occupation in Israel / Palestine, baking, and running in the hills of Vermont.
Andrea Amico is a co-founder of the Testing for Pease community action group. She started advocating for more answers and action for the Pease community impacted by PFC/PFAS water contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, NH in 2014 after learning her husband and two small children were impacted by highly contaminated drinking water. She is passionate about raising awareness of PFAS water contamination, providing education to impacted communities, lowering standards for PFASs in drinking water, and collaborating with others from all aspects of PFASs (communities, physicians, legislators, researchers, government agencies, etc) to achieve a common goal of reducing PFAS exposure through water.
Dr. Laurel Schaider is a Research Scientist at Silent Spring Institute with expertise in environmental chemistry, environmental engineering, and exposure assessment. She leads the Institute’s Cape Cod water quality research on PFASs and other contaminants of emerging concern. Before joining Silent Spring, she was a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she studied heavy metal fate, transport, and exposure. Dr. Schaider earned her master’s and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering Science from MIT.
Speaker: Shaina Kasper (Toxics Action Center), Andrea Amica (Testing for Pease), and Dr. Laurel Schaider (Silent Spring Institute)
What will you learn?
What is the chemical class called PFAS and why are they harmful for human health?
What should I do if I am concerned about my drinking water?
What is happening throughout New England to fight back?
Workshop Description:
PFAS, or polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a large group of man-made toxic chemicals. (PFAS are sometimes also called PFCs, or perfluorinated compounds.) In recent years, some PFAS chemicals have been found at high levels in drinking water systems around the world. They impact at least 15 million Americans drinking water. In this workshop we will answer the following questions: What are PFAS? How are/were we exposed to PFAS? What do we know about the health effects of PFAS exposure? Participants will also learn how their community can respond to PFAS contaminations to make sure it does not happen again in the future.
Speaker Bio:
Shaina Kasper is Toxics Action Center's Vermont State Director and New Hampshire Community Organizer. Shaina works out of the Montpelier office to assist local community groups to clean up hazardous waste sites, and promote clean water, safe energy, and zero waste. Before joining Toxics Action Center three years ago, Shaina worked on economic justice, good governance campaigns, fossil fuel divestment, and other campaigns with Progressive Massachusetts, the Raise Up Campaign, and many local state legislative and gubernatorial campaigns. She went to the United World College in New Mexico, Macalester in Minnesota, and did the JOIN for Justice Jewish Organizing Fellowship in Massachusetts. In her free time, Shaina organizes with IfNotNow Jews against the occupation in Israel / Palestine, baking, and running in the hills of Vermont.
Andrea Amico is a co-founder of the Testing for Pease community action group. She started advocating for more answers and action for the Pease community impacted by PFC/PFAS water contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, NH in 2014 after learning her husband and two small children were impacted by highly contaminated drinking water. She is passionate about raising awareness of PFAS water contamination, providing education to impacted communities, lowering standards for PFASs in drinking water, and collaborating with others from all aspects of PFASs (communities, physicians, legislators, researchers, government agencies, etc) to achieve a common goal of reducing PFAS exposure through water.
Dr. Laurel Schaider is a Research Scientist at Silent Spring Institute with expertise in environmental chemistry, environmental engineering, and exposure assessment. She leads the Institute’s Cape Cod water quality research on PFASs and other contaminants of emerging concern. Before joining Silent Spring, she was a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she studied heavy metal fate, transport, and exposure. Dr. Schaider earned her master’s and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering Science from MIT.