by Tricia Duke '19

Knox College is gearing up for the seventh annual Prairie Fire Bioneers Conference on February 9-11.

The event includes video recordings of nationally recognized plenary speakers, combined with interactive workshops and presentations by local experts who have practical and visionary solutions for the world's most pressing environmental and social challenges.

The conference is being held at the Ford Center for the Fine Arts on the Knox College campus. The event is free to all participants in the Knox, Galesburg, and surrounding communities. Complimentary meals are provided to those who pre-register to attend.

The weekend's activities fall into three tracks: Art, Justice, and Food. Knox Director of Sustainability Deborah Steinberg said that participants will have the opportunity to hear from 20 local presenters on topics ranging from building healthy community food systems to aquaponics to landscape photography. View a full schedule of the event.

The keynote address on Saturday will be presented by Meleiza Figueroa, a Ph.D. candidate in geography at the University of California at Berkeley and former National Press Director for the 2016 Stein/Baraka Green Party presidential campaign. She has been a longtime political educator and organizer involved in a wide range of movements for social and environmental justice.

Her keynote is titled "Robots, Refugees, and Revolutions: Climate Justice at the Tipping Point." Figueroa also will lead a morning session on Sunday, "Methods for Practical Action: History, Theory, Strategy, Tactics."

Steinberg said one of her goals this year is to emphasize how the arts and sciences can work together to find global solutions.

"We decided to dedicate one of the tracks for local speakers to present how art—dance, writing, photography, and sculpture—are integrated into issues of sustainability," said Steinberg.

Peter Schwartzman, associate professor of environmental studies, says that one of the themes of Bioneers is that all living things are related, "You might be an artist, I might be an environmental scientist, but we have a lot we can teach each other."

"This is very different from a science conference that focuses on the analytical and does not deal with the emotional," Schwartzman continued, "We're reaching the whole person in society—emotional, analytical, political, physical, and spiritual."

The Prairie Fire Bioneers Conference is sponsored by the Office of Sustainability and the Department of Environmental Studies.