by Elise Goitia '18

The Prairie Fire Bioneers Conference offered an innovative experience to Knox students and members of the local Galesburg community with a variety of interactive workshops, activities, discussions, and lectures.

"There are a lot of cool events!" Ally Connors '18 said as she planted arugula seeds in the Make Some Serious Microgreens workshop. "It's very inspiring to see how we're coming up with ways to get a whole bunch of people involved in issues when we didn't have these means of connecting people."

The conference had the highest number of participants since it first came to Knox in 2011 with around 200 people in attendance, said Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Peter Schwartzman.

The conference's keynote speaker, former Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney, identified critical social and economic issues such as unemployment rates, financial cuts to public education, and climate change in his presentation titled "The Fierce Urgency of Now: Why Green Politics is Essential." He encouraged students to seek out solutions by working together.

"I feel awakened to environmental issues on a different level," said Sofia Gillespie '18. "I feel like I have been environmentally aware, but this is a huge community of people and to see these people on campus and be like, ‘Hey, remember that talk that we watched?' is really cool."

Some of the other activities and discussions that took place at the conference were the Learn to Make Seedbombs workshop offered by Knox College Alliance for Peaceful Action and the Poverty, Class and Food Issues discussion led by Megan Diana Mackin and Jessi Taylor from the Knox Prairie Community Kitchen.

Tommy Hintz '16 attended the Bioneers Conference for the first time. He enjoyed the interactive workshops that advocated positive economic changes to campus life and called the Bioneers Conference a "unique opportunity."

"I'm glad I finally made time to come and experience new things," Hintz said. "It'll be cool to see students working together to make a lasting change to the campus but also something we can all remember that we were a part of."

KARES representative Sophia Spooner '16, who is majoring in environmental studies and minoring in anthropology and sociology, led one of Saturday morning's interactive workshops. She said she was excited to pass on the experience of planting microgreens and growing economically safe food.

"I am very passionate about microgreens," Spooner said. "I think it's a really good way to start your morning, so that's why we're doing this at Bioneers. I'm so happy with how many people came."

"There are so many ways in which we can all make a positive difference," added Schwartzman. "We just need to commit ourselves and find others that are willing to do so as well."