Workshops

All Workshops are Free to the Public

Activist Center talks with one of the godfathers of organic farming Amigo Bob Cantisano. © Photographer David Lovere

Learn more about the issues and what you can do, get filmmaking tips from pros, and much more – at our Activist Center at Nevada City’s City Hall, 317 Broad  Street on Saturday from  9:30-4:45, and Sunday from 9:30-4:45.

Saturday, 9:30am-4:45pm

Teaching Peace, Social Justice & Sustainability: Education as Activism, 9:30-10:30am

21^st Century learning communities are empowering new generations of change-makers with the imaginative and creative capacity to solve the problems created by their predecessors. The panel members will present educational communities that are grounded in social and environmental justice, and lifestyle accountability. Tools such as global and intrapersonal awareness, Nonviolent communication and Farm to Table experiential education are preparing young people to take action for bettering the planet and all its inhabitants. Panel members include: Dorothy Henderson, Head of School of the Woolman Semester, a Friends Semester School for teens in Nevada City; Malaika Bishop, co-founder of the People’s Grocery in Oakland, and educator and garden manager at Woolman; Sean “Professor” Burns, teacher of social movement history and critical theory at UC Santa Cruz, and member of the band “Professor Burns and the Lilac Field”; and Ron Charles, teacher at Yuba River Charter School, a Waldorf charter school in Nevada City.

Measuring and Promoting Happiness in Nevada City, 10:45am-11:45am

Join Laura Musikanski and John de Graaf to hear about The Happiness Initiative, a new national effort to measure and improve quality of life and happiness, instead of Gross Domestic Product and hyper-consumerism.  The United Nations has called on all governments to make “the pursuit of happiness” their goal and find ways to measure their progress.  The Happiness Initiative (www.happycounts.org) provides a way to do this that is engaging people in many American cities in a deeper conversation about what really matters.  Nevada City is planning a happiness initiative–find out how you can be a part of it! Take part and record your happiness index by following this link. Or if you’re not from Nevada City, learn about how to do a happiness initiative in your town! Reinette Senum, Nevada City City Council Member, will also be on hand to present the launch of the happiness initiative in Nevada City.

Conservation Filmmaking: Bringing an Idea to Reality, 12:00-1:00pm

Join National Geographic Explorers, Zeb Hogan and Andy Maser, for a filmmakers workshop that will help you take your ideas from conception to reality. They will walk participants through the process of bringing a passion into a platform for communicating a conservation message.  Topics will include: how to effectively integrate science into your media; the pros and cons of using different types of media (TV, online, news, documentary, scientific publications); available funding opportunities for filmmakers; and most importantly how to effectively tell your story in a way that is engaging and understandable for your audience.

Bringing Issues to Light, 1:30-2:30pm

As media evolves, technology becomes more accessible, and audiences become more sophisticated, what does that mean for how we communicate about things that matter? Join Steve Katz (publisher of Mother Jones) and two co-founders of Take One Creative, Hal Clifford (eel*water*rock*man and The Next Best West) and Jason Houston (eel*water*rock*man and People of the Forest photo exhibit; picture editor at Orion) for a lively Q&A driven discussion on how meaningful stories and creative approaches can earn an audience in a noisy, crowded media environment in order to inspire, inform and provoke positive change in the world.

The Future of California State Parks, 3-4pm

Join a panel of local and regional experts to learn about the latest updates on the State Park closures, and other issues effecting California State Parks.  Panelists will include Elizabeth Goldstein, President of the California State Parks Foundation; Caleb Dardick, Executive Director of the South Yuba River Citizens League; Caryl Hart, Chair of the California State Parks Commission & Director of Sonoma County Regional Parks; and David Vassar, Director of California Forever. For a history of California State Parks and background information on the current threats to State Parks see the films, California Forever and The First 70, featured in this years festival.  They will both be screening Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Sea to Sky to Sea, 4:15-4:45pm

Bicycling from the shores of the Pacific to the Sierras while towing a kayak- why not? To promote river conservation, Stephen Linaweaver and teammates biked and hiked from the San Francisco Bay to the source of the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park, climbing over 13,000 feet, and then paddled down the river and back to the Pacific ocean. Join Stephen as he shares stories of encounters with goat’s weed, Priest Grade hill, rattlesnakes, big dams, and dive bars in the Delta, all to gain a unique, 100% human-powered perspective of one of California’s treasured waterways.

Observe, Participate, Reflect: The Land Ethic Leaders Method, Saturday 2:30-3:30pm at the APPLE Center.  Limited to 30 participants.

One of Aldo Leopold’s great strengths as a scientist and communicator was his ability to weave reflections on history, social trends, and ethics into his deliberation of ecological issues.  To follow his lead today, the Aldo Leopold Foundation has developed a program to help people create opportunities for community dialogue about humanity’s relationships to the natural world that is not bounded by a need to produce solutions to specific problems.
The Land Ethic Leaders program is rooted in Leopold’s own method of engaging his family and students in developing a personal land ethic—observing the natural world through scientific inquiry, participating in purposeful work on the land, and reflecting on their experiences. Together, these activities can bring people to a new understanding and respect for the landscape around them. The main thrust of the program is in teaching participants to lead reflective discussions to deepen conversation about our relation to the natural world.  The program generally takes place over a two-day period, so this workshop provides participants with just a taste of what Land Ethic Leaders is all about.  This workshop follows the screening of Green Fire, a film about Aldo Leopold’s life, on Saturday afternoon.  The film will screen again on Sunday afternoon.

SUNDAY, 9:30-4:45  

Restoring the Yuba and Bear Rivers through Hydropower Relicensing, 9:30-10:30am

Many of the rivers in the Sierra Nevada have hydropower dams for which the current licenses are expiring.  The FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) relicensing process presents an opportunity to change river flows and river conditions to meet environmental goals.  The Foothills Water Network and South Yuba River Citizens League will lead a presentation on restoring the fisheries, ecosystem, boating, and angling opportunities on the Yuba and Bear Rivers through hydropower relicensings. We will look at maps of the river sections negatively impacted by hydropower dams and discuss how we can mitigate those impacts. We will present options for citizen engagement in the relicensing process.

The Future of Watershed Collaboration, 10:45-11:45am

Join us for a brief presentation and lively discussion on developing scale based organizational structures (also known as Watershed Guilds) conducive to building alliances and reducing horizontal competition in the watershed movement. A 5 scaled guild system for the San Francisco Bay Watershed will be presented, linking the work we do at the scale of small tributaries to regional issues like the Central Valley salmonid fisheries crisis, with existing opportunities for direct democracy and citizen stewardship. Extending the geographic scale to the global, we will discuss building alliances and support for the communities engaged in the international movement to forestall the construction of ill conceived mega-dams in the face of a changing climate.

Biomimicry in a Nutshell, 12-1pm

Biomimicry is an innovation method that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies—new ways of living—that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul. Biomimicry 3.8  helps innovators learn from and emulate natural models through workshops, research reports, biological consulting, and field excursions.  Taryn Mead of Biomimicry 3.8 (www.biomimicry.net <http://www.biomimicry.net> )  will be presenting a one hour workshop that will engage participants in a personal exploration of the concepts of biomimicry.  The film Second Nature: the Biomimicry Evolution will be screening on Saturday night and again on Sunday morning.

Learning from the Past: a History of Disobedience from MLK to OWS, 1:15-2:15pm

What is the difference between non-violence as a strategy and a tactic, as opposed to a lifestyle? How is non-violence effective and why does our Climate Justice movement need it? How can we learn from the past to create a sustained peaceful resistance, as opposed to random bursts of action?  Looking back on history, we invite you to construct and explore a timeline of civil disobedience. What made non-violence an integral and effective element of the Civil Rights movement? We’ll explore the core values of peaceful civil disobedience, through the looking glass of lunch counter sit-ins and the Freedom Rides of the 1960s, as well as the Reverend James Lawson’s workshops that led to an unwavering commitment from participating activists — what Martin Luther King, Jr, referred to as the “self-purification” step.

The Story Continues: Finding the Good follows Tim DeChristopher, 2:30-3:30pm

Since 2009, the Wild and Scenic audience has embraced Tim DeChristopher and his bold activism. Tim is currently serving a two-year sentence in federal prison, and is unable to make an appearance at this year’s festival. Still, we’ve found a way to bring Tim’s spirited message to you through never-before-seen interview clips, and the voice of youth who are inspired by his example – youth who traveled with Finding the Good Semester Program to Salt Lake City, Utah, for Tim’s trial. Come hear their story, current updates from Tim, and how you can get involved.

GMO’s, You Have a Right to Know, 3:45-4:45pm

Join us for a panel discussion on the threat that GMO’s present to sustainable agriculture and the corporate control of our seed supply.  Find out how to avoid eating GMO’s and what you can do to eliminate them from our food supply.  Panelists will include natural food industry pioneer Michael Funk; Chris Maher, General Manager of BriarPatch Co-op Market; David Edwards, local representative for the Label GMO ballot initiative; and Rowen White of the Sierra Seed Cooperative.