Workshop and Presentation Tents

Are you curious about composting, climate change, and converting a vehicle to run on vegetable oil? How about building a wind turbine, growing organic food, or constructing your next house out of tires?

Come and check out the workshops and presentations throughout the weekend! Two tents, three days, and over thirty presentations from the experts on everything you need to know about sustainable living!

Schedule Friday, August 22

Saturday, August 23

Sunday, August 24

Presenters

• Hart Haidn - Friday, August 22 at 1:00pm

Hart Haidn has worked in agriculture in different countries around the world, and has owned an organic food processing business. Since 1995, Hart has dedicated much of his time to sustainable development, first in agriculture and later in Municipal Sustainability Planning. His work has made him realize that all planning for the future most be long-term, inclusive, and free from self-serving individualism, government neglect, and corporate interference. Good governance is ultimately the deciding factor in sustainable development on all levels.

• Rick Block - Friday, August 22 at 1:00pm

Rick Block , Canadian Prairies Program Manager for Heifer International Canada, began working with Heifer International two years ago, and has enjoyed the challenges and success that are inherent to community development – He have interacted with many inspiring people and organizations in this province and indeed Canada through his work with Heifer. Previously, he has worked for Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, the Department of Soil Science at the University of Saskatchewan where he obtained a Masters degree in agroforestry, and Mennonite Central Committee in Mexico. He grew up on a farm, but currently lives in Saskatoon with my wife Jacqueline and their 2 year-old son Ezra.

• Robin Hartl - Friday, August 22 at 2:00pm

Robin Hartl is a registered dietitian and began working with CHEP last fall. She is a nutritionist and runs the nutrition education programs at CHEP: such as Baby Food Making Workshops, Kids Cooking, Healthy Eating Active Living training, and Salad Bars in schools. She has opportunities to work with wonderful and inspiring individuals in many communities in Saskatoon, which she loves. Robin attended the University of Saskatchewan where she received her bachelor of science from the College of Pharmacy & Nutrition. She grew up all over Saskatchewan and currently lives in Saskatoon with her partner, Jason.

• Pat Godhe and Elaine Sukava - Friday, August 22 at 2:00pm

Pat Godhe
Pat been farming organically in the Wadena area for forty years and certified organic since 1990. The Godhe farm raises organic beef and some cereal crops. She is on the board of the Saskatchewan Organic Directorate and the Food Miles Campaign (FMC) Committee. She has taken on the role of Media Campaign Coordinator for the FMC with the job of spreading the word about the benefits of buying locally produced foods and, in particular, locally grown organic food.

Elaine Sukava
Elaine has been involved for most of her life, in organisations and in education that emphasises sustainability and environmental issues. She is presently hired to coordinate the Food Miles Campaign Project and facilitate the development of curriculum materials to be used in schools in the province. She lives in the midst of the forest west of Prince Albert.

• Allison Henderson - Friday, August 22 at 3:00

Originally from Yorkton, SK, Allison is a dedicated advocate of prairie conservation and currently works as a Species at Risk Biologist at Grasslands National Park. She will discuss prairie Species at Risk and how each of us can get involved in conserving biodiversity on Canada's prairies.

• Dave Palibroda, EET, LEED AP (Integrated Designs) - Friday, August 22 at 4:00pm

Dave Palibroda, project manager for Integrated Designs, is an electronics-engineering technologist proficient in control system design, and passionate in true environmental and social sustainability. Dave is a LEED accredited professional and was responsible for managing the certification process for Saskatchewan Forest Centre LEED Gold facility, Saskatchewan’s first LEED building, Dave has been with IDI since 2003 and is currently busy managing LEED certification for many other projects.

• Tyler Beatty - Friday, August 22 at 4:00pm

For the 800 million people who go hungry each day and the one billion who lack access to clean water, poverty is an absence of opportunity. Engineers Without Borders responds to this need, helping people in developing communities gain access to technologies that will improve their lives. We believe that technology, when appropriately incorporated into each community's social, cultural, economic and political context, can drive extraordinary change.

• Wayne Nickel - Friday, August 22 at 5:00pm

Wayne Nickel is a partner in the commercial recycling division of Saskatoon Curbside Recycling. In his presentation he will talk about opportunities for businesses to become involved in recycling as well as challenges involved in getting financial committment to "do the right thing" when it is still so cheap to throw things into the landfill.

• Leslie Gosselin

Leslie Gosselin is an IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) accredited communicator with more than twenty years of experience primarily in the field of Community Relations. She graduated in 1983 from the University of Saskatchewan with a Bachelor of Education degree and after three years of teaching, switched to a career in Public Relations. A Certificate in Public Relations through the University of Regina led to work in the not-for-profit sector organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross Society and 17 years experience in the energy sector. As SaskEnergy’s Manager of Advertising and Community Relations, Leslie has been instrumental in shaping the image of the corporation, developing a culture of Corporate Social Responsibility, and engaging employees in the process. She is very active in her community and currently wearing many hats in the province’s figure skating community, but also spent 13 years as a key volunteer and leader with Girl Guides of Canada. She currently resides in Regina, with her husband and three children.

• Ewen Coxworth - Saturday, August 23 at 12:00pm

Many studies are concluding that, sometime in the next 10-25 years, world oil production will reach a peak and then decline. This talk will survey the search for alternatives for fuelling the world’s transportation systems, In addition to greatly increased vehicle energy efficiency and increased use of public transport and active transportation modes, alternative energy sources are needed. These may include biofuels based on urban wastes and forest products, and renewably generated electricity to power plug-in hybrid vehicles. What can we do in the short term to reduce our energy use in transportation? What is the long-term outlook for the next 50 years?

• Julie Friddell - Saturday, August 23 at 1:00pm

Julie received her B.S. in Physics at the University of South Carolina. She worked for the state of South Carolina analyzing drinking water for pesticide contamination and managing clean-up of abandoned hazardous waste sites. She obtained her Ph.D. in Paleoclimatology, also from the University of South Carolina, after studying climate change during the past 10, 000 years. Julie worked in a post-doctoral research position at the cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, New Hampshire, studying modern weather and climate. Currently, she’s managing the IP3 research network at the University of Saskatchewan, a group of over 80 scientists and students who are studying snow and water resources in the Canadian Rockies and North. She co-instructed a course in Climate Change at the University of Saskatchewan in January-February 2008.

• Thomas Porter - Saturday, August 23 at 4:00pm

Saskatchewan’s Thomas and Manda Porter will use recycled materials to build a new sustainable type of home. Tires, bottles, cans and other reusable building materials will be incorporated to make a sprawling luxury home with no utility bills near Prince Albert, SK. Volunteers are already flocking to the idea, willing to share their time, energy and sweat to help save Planet Earth.

"Simply put, a strong desire for guilt-free living was our motivation for the EcoArk Saskatchewan Project. We want to build a home that will take care of us, just as Nature has taken care of the human race for thousands of years. We've often tossed around the idea of forsaking everything and just moving out into the wilderness, but it just wasn’t very realistic for us. We still need to live and work as part of society, but we really want to cast off some of our energy wasting ways and set an example of what can be done with a little know-how and bit of sweat.

"After a lot of research and soul-searching, we have decided to build an EcoArk. We have based the premise of this project on the concepts found in the Earthship volumes. We hope that in sharing as many aspects of this journey as we can, we will help inspire others to take similar steps, and lessen the load on Mother Earth. Be sure to check out our website www.ecoarksaskatchewan.com for more information!” ~Thomas & Manda Porter

• Soni Dasmohapatra and Ruby Dhand - Sunday, August 24 at 12:00pm

Soni Dasmohapatra, Child and Youth Advocate Ontario and Ruby Dhand Masters in Law Candidate University of Toronto, will be co-presenting on the topic of  Diverse Approaches for Environmental Sustainability. This presentation share a framework which discusses diverse approaches to understanding environmental sustainability and how these approaches impact the lives of children and youth in Canada. The presenters will provide insight on  how different advocacy tools can be used by individuals and groups to promote environmental sustainability.  

• Mike Nemeth and Steffen Bertelsen - Sunday, August 24 at 1:00pm

Steffen Bertelsen and Mike Nemeth are members of Footprint Design, an engineering student group at the University of Saskatchewan. Footprint Design is devoted to the development of green technologies such as wind energy. Steffen and Mike will discuss the design of the group's wind turbine as well as its construction.

• Craig Shearer - Sunday, August 24 at 2:00pm

Craig is a master innovator, trainer, speaker, and educator and is the top passive solar industrial designer in Canada. He has dozens of solar inventions to his credit such as the solar BBQ, solar kettle, the first solar incinerating toilet prototype, solar eyewear, the solar air conditioning and venting driver unit, the solar composting porta toilet, the solar water purifier, the "Solar Chariot" and a solar food dehydrator as well as a compact solar shower most designed for do it yourselfers.

• Laura Beddome and Jarita Greyeyes - Sunday, August 24 at 3:00pm

The purpose of this worskhop is to:
1. Educate the public about the relationship between women's rights and HIV/AIDS
2. Engage the public in challenging their attitudes and beliefs about women's rights and HIV/AIDS
3. Mobilize individuals to take action

• Jason Freeman - Sunday, August 24 at 4:00pm

Jason Freeman has been involved in sustainable agriculture since December 1996, when he worked as sales manager for Wiseman Noble Sales and Marketing, a small Vancouver-based events and marketing firm. During this era of pre-hemp legalization, Jason's work focused on proving to the Canadian government that a hemp industry existed and that legalization would be in the best interest of Canada. After much success, hemp was legalized in 1998, when farmers grew hemp for the first time in over 40 years. After legalization, Jason founded Biohemp Environmental Technologies, the first company in North America to, in 2000, bring to market a line of certified organic hempseed foods. In March 2001, Jason formed Farmer Direct Co-Operative Ltd. with three organic farmers. Since August 2002, Jason has been the Sales and Marketing Manager for Farmer Direct Co-operative Ltd. Farmer Direct has increased sales to over $5 million per year and increased membership from three to seventy family farms.

This presentation will focus on Jason's co-ops domestic fairtrade initiative, the fairDeal, at ATO. The fairDeal is an initiative from Farmer Direct Co-op to create domestic fairtrade standards for North American organic family farms.