Pearson Student Sustainability Summits

About the Program

The Pearson Foundation Student Sustainability Summits are a series of university-based, student-driven events designed to foster sustainability projects, student leadership, and media skills using digital film. These gatherings at major universities across the United States encourage students to make a difference in our society, from advocating things one can do every day, to engaging in long-term community projects, to using media to communicate their ideas globally.

The first summit, held at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro on October 23–5, 2008, offered students the chance to take part in two tracks. The Act Global track allowed students to explore their ideas about how to make an impact on people's actions by creating public service announcements that can be distributed across the Internet. The Act Local track empowered students to take action in the university community, cleaning up a local river, inspecting government buildings, and creating a proposal for a campus sustainability plan.

The students' short films about the environment, as well as interviews with Sustainability Summit speakers—including Pearson environmental science author Jay Withgott—appear on the myenvironmentplace website, which supports the introductory environment science and non-majors biology program at Pearson/Benjamin Cummings.

The Pearson Foundation Student Sustainability Summits are another example of Pearson encouraging new leaders in higher education. Subsequent summits on sustainability and other subjects will be announced soon.