The National Steinbeck Center Joins Eight Smithsonian.

Oct. 16, 2012 - PRLog -- Esmeralda Montenegro Owen
Curator of Marketing and Community Engagement
(831) 775-4722 direct
esmeralda@steinbeck.org

The National Steinbeck Center Joins Eight Smithsonian

Affiliates in National Youth Summit—The Dust Bowl
Salinas, CA—On Wednesday, October 17, 2012 the National Steinbeck Center will join eight Smithsonian Affiliate organizations in hosting the Smithsonian National Youth Summit and Regional Town Hall bringing together middle and high school students across the country to explore the story of The Dust Bowl.

We are expecting 200 students and teachers from 7 Monterey County schools, both public and private. The program will begin promptly at 10 AM.

The National Youth Summit takes place at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Warner Bros. Theater in Washington, D.C. The Summit examines the consequences of the Dust Bowl through current issues of drought, agricultural sustainability, and national and global food security.

The Regional Town Hall will occur immediately after the Summit and includes representatives from MBARI, Driscoll’s and the USDA to talk about similar environmental and agricultural issues in our own community. During this time, students will have an opportunity to ask questions of the panelists.
National Youth Summit, Washington, D.C.

The National Youth Summit brings middle and high school students together with scholars, teachers, policy experts, witnesses to history, and activists in a national conversation about important events in America’s past that have relevance to the nation’s present and future. The program is an ongoing collaboration between the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the National Endowment for the Humanities, PBS and museums across the United States in the Smithsonian Affiliations network.

The Summit will include segments from award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’s forthcoming film The Dust Bowl and a panel discussion, moderated by Huffington Post science editor Cara Santa Maria, and featuring: Ken Burns, Dust Bowl survivor Cal Crabill, United States Department of Agriculture ecologist Debra Peters, 5th generation farmer Roy Bardole from Rippey, Iowa, and farmer and founder of Anson Mills, Glenn Roberts. Panelists will take questions from students participating in the Summit, and offer their own perspectives on what history can teach us about our relationship with the environment. The Smithsonian Affiliate Youth Town Halls will take place at:
•   Durham Museum, Omaha, Neb.
•   Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Ft. Worth, Texas
•   Senator John Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, Pa.
•   History Colorado, Denver, Colo.
•   Miami Science Museum, Miami, Fla.
•   The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, Dubuque, Iowa
•   Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Okla.
•   Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa, Calif.
•   South Dakota State Historical Society, S.D.

About the National Steinbeck Center
The National Steinbeck Center is located at One Main Street in Salinas, California, the birthplace of John Steinbeck. It is a museum and cultural institution with a mission to engage people in the exploration of culture, issues and the arts relevant to our times, inspired by the words of John Steinbeck. The Center offers multiple visitor experiences: the John Steinbeck Exhibition Hall and changing art and cultural exhibits with a variety of education and public programs. For more information about this and other events, visit our website at www.steinbeck.org.