University of British Columbia to Host IB World Student Conference Focused on Sustainability

IB students seek strategies that go beyond mitigation

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than 300 teens enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme around the world will gather at the University of British Columbia (UBC) to consider how the landscape of environmental awareness is changing.

A five day conference, 'The New Green: Making Things Better, Not Just Less Bad,' organized by the IB and UBC, will be held at the university's Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) from Monday, July 23 to Friday, July 27. The event is open to all students enrolled in the IB's Diploma Programme; over 300 participants from 37 countries are registered to attend.   

The focus of the conference is 'regeneration,' sustainability strategies that go beyond harm-reduction and look to achieve actual improvement in environmental systems. The conference location, UBC's Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) is one of the world's greenest buildings and is sustainably designed to have a net-positive energy consumption impact on the environment.

Participants will hear from keynote speakers at the cutting edge of sustainability thinking, including CIRS Director, Dr. John Robinson, environmental activist, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, international philanthropist, John McCall McBain and National Geographic photographer, Paul Nicklen, as well as UBC students.

The students will have the opportunity to get involved themselves, by using advanced interactive technology to investigate different models for achieving regeneration around the globe. Feedback for their efforts will be excitingly immediate; the CIRS modeling technology is capable of running proposed solutions and playing them out in real-world conditions. If successful, this empowering simulation will show how today's good decisions can lead to significant benefits tomorrow.

Drew Deutsch, Director of IB Americas, and one of the event's speakers, says, "This is an amazing opportunity for IB students to get practical experience developing real world applications for the very real environmental problems our world faces. In my experience, students have great ideas and want to make a difference. Through the World Student Conference, we are enabling students to transfer those great ideas into reality. This is truly an exceptional opportunity to develop leadership skills and international understanding."

Twenty-one students won scholarships sponsored by donors through the auspices of the International Baccalaureate. A World Student Conference organized around the theme of social entrepreneurship was held earlier in July at IE University in Segovia, Spain.

IB World Student Conference Program: http://ibwsc2012.sites.olt.ubc.ca/program/
Twitter Hashtag: #IBWSC12

About the International Baccalaureate
The International Baccalaureate is a non-profit foundation, which offers four high quality and challenging educational programmes for a worldwide community of schools. For over 40 years, IB programmes have gained a reputation for their high academic standards, for preparing students for life in a globalised 21st century, and for helping to develop the citizens who will create a better, more peaceful world. The IB currently works with 3,372 schools in 141 countries. To learn more, please visit www.ibo.org/iba.

The IB Diploma Programme is designed as an academically challenging and balanced programme of education with final examinations that prepares students, normally aged 16 to 19, for success at university and life beyond. The programme is normally taught over two years and has gained recognition and respect from the world's leading universities.

SOURCE International Baccalaureate