Past Events | Institute on the Environment | University of Minnesota Duluth

Our Climate Futures: Participatory Science on a Great Lake

Thank you for making the 2025 Our Climate Futures: Participatory Science on a Great Lake conference an incredible success! The Institute on the Environment - Duluth's annual conference is dedicated to connecting the University of Minnesota - Duluth campus with our community, and creating a space for people and ideas to flourish. Our 2025 conference brought scientists, natural resource professionals, and communities together February 3rd and 4th to share experiences and make new connections. Passionate community members came from around Minnesota and the region to learn about the latest practices, ideas, and strategies surrounding participatory science and community engagement from the region’s leading experts, change agents, and innovators.

Book Swap

Students, faculty, and staff participated in our book swap in the Garden Room on Monday, March 17, 2025 from 9:30am – 2:30pm.

Have books you want to get rid of? Or maybe you’re looking for something new to read? Check out the sustainability office's Free Store! Drop off your gently used books or textbooks and swap them out for something new to you! This event is free to attend and open to students, faculty, and staff!

*IonE accepted all genres as long as they appropriate. We only accepted books in gently used condition, as we could not accept stained, battered, or written in books, textbooks, or workbooks.

Business Opportunities & Solutions Showcase

Businesses were invited to join IonE@UMD and the Labovitz School of Business Economics at UMD for a showcase featuring student research projects revealing business solutions and opportunities that stem from engaging the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

This event took place in the Kirby Ballroom, Kirby Student Center at UMD (1120 Kirby Drive, Duluth, MN 55812) on Tuesday, December 10th from 4:30pm to 5:45pm with a drop-in format.

Net-Zero House Tour!

Sharing Our Stories

Hawk Ridge Fall Migration

Starry Night Skies

More than 80% of the world’s population lives under light-polluted skies. Light pollution can negatively impact wildlife and ecosystems, human health, and more. In April of 2024, over 60 people attended the UMD Institute on the Environment showing of the documentary Northern Nights, Starry Skies, a visually stunning celebration of our spectacular starry skies… held in the Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium.

UMD Energy Plant Tour

IonE and the Sustainability Office arranged to have Mechanical & Electrical Operations/Engineering Manager John Sawyer lead two tours of the UMD Energy Plant in February of 2024. Over 20 students from the Colleges of Science and Engineering and Life Sciences were able to learn about the heating and cooling systems which use 45% of UMD’s greenhouse gas emissions and how, as individuals, they can lower their impact. The average commercial building wastes 30% of the energy it consumes! Students also learned how to cut emissions at home, an important piece of the solution, as homes and commercial buildings account for nearly 40% of the energy consumption in the US.

Climate Grief Discussion

The UMD Institute on the Environment and UMD Program in Writing Studies co-hosted, Discussing Climate Change; What is lost, What is left, What is possible, with authors Katya Gordon and Shawna Weaver in November of 2023. Weaver’s new book, Climate Grief: From Coping to Resilience and Action, explores the powerful emotions we feel as the climate changes and how that affects our ability to respond. Gordon, winner of the University of Minnesota Climate Communication Award for 2022, is an educator, radio show host, and author of Climate Change Musings and Studies from Lake Superior’s North Shore. Together they led an impactful conversion about climate change, climate grief and climate action.

Our Climate Futures 2023