Green Schools Conference and Expo 2020 Main Stage speakers announced

Published on: 
Monday, January 27, 2020
Author: 
Karen Chen

The Green Schools Conference and Expo 2020 (GSCE), to be held March 2–4 in Portland, Oregon, is the only national event to bring together all the players involved in making green schools a reality: people who lead, operate, build and teach in U.S. schools.

The main stage will feature a diverse and dynamic group of speakers to inspire and energize the green schools community. In October, Danni Washington was announced as the Opening Plenary speaker, and today, we are excited to share the speakers who will be featured at the Women in Green Breakfast and Plenary Luncheon on March 3.

Register for the Green Schools Conference and Expo to hear from these inspiring leaders.

Plenary Luncheon Youth Panel

It is critical to hear from the generation for whom climate change is not an abstract hypothetical, but an urgent reality requiring community action. A panel of youth voices will headline the Plenary Luncheon on March 3 to discuss their leadership on environmental activism and entrepreneurship.

The panel will be moderated by Lincoln High School Social Sciences teacher Tim Swinehart. Tim is an advocate for bold climate justice education that empowers students. He helped create Portland Public Schools’ (PPS) first-in-the-nation climate justice education policy and has served on the PPS Climate Justice Committee for the last three years.

Youth panelists will include:

  • Lily Gardner, a Kentucky-based high school junior and a director of Future Voter Support work for Sunrise Movement.
  • Rayan Krishnan, an undergraduate student at Stanford University whose desire to make the science of climate change more accessible for all students led him to create a video game called Operation Sustain.
  • Isaac Vergun, a senior from Beaverton, Oregon, a co-founder of Youth Acting for Our Earth (YAE!) and a plaintiff in Juliana et al. v. U.S.

Women in Green

Women in Green spans the globe with a vision to inspire and empower women. The Women in Green Breakfast at GSCE 2020 will feature local Portland women who have led initiatives to create tangible change in their communities. This year’s theme is “Stand Up!” and focuses on the power of individual influence, encouraging females to stand up for what they believe in, stand up for others, stand up for speaking their minds and stand up for paving the way for future generations.

Women in Green will be moderated by Jaimie Cloud, the founder and president of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education.

Panelists will provide unique perspectives to the Women in Green Breakfast:

  • Whitney Ellersick, MS, RDN, is the Nutrition Services Senior Director at Portland Public Schools, where, under her leadership, the PPS Nutrition Services department has been recognized as a leader in local food procurement.
  • Dilafruz Williams, Ph.D., is a professor of Leadership for Sustainability Education at Portland State University. She has given keynote addresses around the world and has designed, co-founded and supported several cutting-edge initiatives at Portland State, such as its Learning Gardens Laboratory and Leadership for Sustainability Education master’s degree program.
  • Darcy Winslow is the president and co-founder of the Academy for Systems Change, an organization focused on advancing the field of awareness-based systemic change in order to achieve economic, social and ecological well-being. She has 21 years of experience at Nike, Inc., and sits on multiple sustainability-related boards.

View the full slate of educational offerings at GSCE.

For questions about the conference, please contact us.

Register for the Green Schools Conference and Expo