Steve McIsaac says when experiential learning group Inside Education started doing youth environmental leadership summits for students in 2011, they were answering a need that was already there.
“We believe and we have learned from students that they’re fundamentally disinterested in waiting until some magical day, in quote marks, ‘when I grow up,’ to make a difference,” he says.
The typical summit sees twenty high schools invited to a three-day weekend of programming, offering around 80 students and 40 teachers the opportunity to hear from keynote speakers — from cabinet ministers to scientists to First Nations leaders — and take part in hands-on workshops.
The most recent summit, which happened in March just before the pandemic struck, was based around agriculture.
“We went on a bunch of tours of farming operations,” says McIsaac. “It was an opportunity for students to learn with each other.”
At the end of each summit, groups are asked to develop an energy action plan to take back to their schools. McIsaac says he’s seen a wide variety of the student-driven projects, everything from fundraising for school solar panels to authoring and publishing a children’s book to pass on some of the knowledge gained.
The idea is not to tell students what to do but to help them develop their own plans, McIsaac says.
“We’re providing the support to help them achieve their goals now, not in some distant future.”
McIsaac says the overall goal of the environmental summits is to inspire students but that their passion has also inspired him.
“It’s a different generation,” he says. “They want to be engaged, they want to find ways to make a difference.”
Inside Education has seen its own instance of generational change. McIsaac says the education company recently posted a job opening and received an application from a former participant who said a summit in 2011 changed her life.
“She’s now working for us, and leading youth summits,” he says.
“I’m inspired by that, to be able to say that we’ve made a difference in this young person’s life.”
