The MindShift Sustainability Education Keynote

~ The Leadership & Passion of Youth Can Make a Difference

In September of 2007, seven high school students sat down with facilitators from the HRM Adventure Earth Centre hoping to make a difference - to write a theatrical presentation and sustainability education program to mobilize their high school peers to work for a healthy environment. Within three years the program they wrote has not only been performed for more than 4000 high schools students, but the message and impact has gone way beyond their peers to reach several thousand adults from the Atlantic region and across Canada.

They have provided large keynote presentations to the national Canadian Environmental Education conference and the provincial Recreation Nova Scotia conference, as well as to more than a thousand HRM staff, council members, the Mayor, plus a wide range of smaller conferences. They have consistently received standing ovations and elicited deep emotion and commitments among audience members to make a difference in their lives, workplaces and communities. They were awarded the 2009 provincial youth environment award for their work. The design team has now graduated, passing it forward to a younger generation of dynamic, passionate and skilled youth.

The MindShift Keynote has three integrated elements:

• Spaceship:
  The blackened room is taken over by the Captain and six Lieutenants of the Spaceship Earth traveling across time from 1890 to 2030. With interactive multi-media theatre, the course of the planet is laid out before us with current facts and stark predictions.
• Lifestyle:
  The team then questions the course of this ship and through a series of hilarious and thoughtful dramatic parodies on our daily lives, they illustrate how each of us has so many ways and so much power to "shift it" and make a difference.
• Empowerment:
  The team members share from the heart as to why they have embarked on MindShift, and how they are making a difference as young people in their communities, before turning to ask the audience how they can make a difference in their own communities.

Sponsors & Contact

MindShift is sponsored by the HRM Adventure Earth Centre and the HRM Sustainable Environment Management Office. It is performed for large community groups and conference keynotes between October and May on a selected basis so as to maximize impact. For further information, to discuss costs, and to arrange a performance contact:

George Taylor
HRM Community Recreation Services
taylorg@halifax.ca
902-490-4584