INSIDE OUT: REIMAGINING WHAT IT MEANS TO BE OUTDOORS

Most of us grew up with the classic narrative of the outdoors, that untamed place where brave men go to conquer mountains, jungles and ice flows. But recently, something funny happened on the way to the wilderness: we started to see the outdoors in a whole new way. Not just as the place you go to test your mettle but as a realm that intersects with our lives on multiple levels—a place that’s vital to our physical and mental health. A place we need to save, because it has the power to save us. In this session we’ll explore this fascinating transformation, what’s driving it, and what it means to our outdoor lives. We’ll discover that going outside is not just snowshoes and turkey hunting. It’s about climate change, water rights, Native American perspectives, and the power of history to shape how we see the great outdoors. Our guide on this journey is documentary filmmaker and television executive Michael Rosenfeld, who’s covered the outdoors since his days as a writer and producer at National Geographic. More recently he was the executive producer for the critically acclaimed PBS series America Outdoors with Baratunde Thurston, which investigates what our outdoor lives are like today. With video clips and vivid stories from the field, this presentation will show you the outdoors through a very different lens.