Outreach Coordinator
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education | Wisconsin Energy Institute
Hometown: Milton, WI
Allison Bender is the Outreach Coordinator for the Wisconsin Energy Institute (WEI). She has a background in environmental education and has worked as a naturalist in state parks across Wisconsin and Minnesota. After completing a B.A. in environmental studies at St. Olaf College, she served as an AmeriCorps Member at Whitewater State Park in Minnesota’s Driftless Region. At WEI, Allison coordinates a wide variety of educational programming and works with scientists to translate their research into hands-on activities, lessons, and events for learners of all ages.
Talks:
Climate at your Fingertips – An Interactive Solutions Workshop
How can we collectively limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius? In this talk, audience members will identify real climate solutions and test their impacts on global temperature using an interactive, cutting-edge computer simulation. Together we’ll create a potential future using evidence-based modeling and engaging conversations.
Energy Transitions – the history we’re living
We are in the middle of a clean energy transition. Oral history allows us all to become historians, sharing our stories and documenting climate solutions from our communities. In this talk, learn how the Wisconsin Energy Institute partnered with the UW¬–Madison Oral History Program to empower youth to record conversations with their grandparents, capturing eyewitness accounts of the changing energy system. By the end of our time together, you’ll be ready to go out and create your own oral history for the collection.