SLU news
Brilliant presentations and exciting discussions during the round table discussions in Umeå
Published: 31 May 2024
This year's third and final round table discussion took place in Umeå with high school students from Tannberg School in Lycksele, Maja Beskow High School in Umeå and Hjalmar Strömer School in Strömsund. During the year, the students have worked intensively on finding solutions to some of the world's global challenges, something that they now had the chance to present to experts in the field.
The day began with a welcome from Pernilla Christensen, vice-dean of the Faculty of Forestry and Abigail Turner, representative from the World Food Prize Foundation, before the students were divided into discussion groups for their presentations.
After their presentations, the high school students had a more practical activity by testing the so-called Forest Box, an activity where you get to squeeze and look at a variety of materials extracted from the forest, something that was really appreciated by the participants who had the task trying to figure out what they were.
Group photo of the high school students, teachers, experts, coordinators and guests at the round table discussions in Umeå. Photo: SLU YI
During the year, nearly 500 students from Landskrona, Malmö, Lund, Ystad, Uppsala, Lycksele, Strömsund and Umeå have been part of the SLU Youth Institute and taken up the challenge of writing about a global problem linked to food security. By choosing a problem connected to a specific country, the students have had to immerse themselves in one or several of the complex challenges the world are facing and present sustainable solutions to these.
New for this year is the inspirational programme that is given in parallel with the round table discussions. Those students who are not part of the round table discussions themselves are invited to learn more about SLU's education programmes and research. In Umeå, that group also got to try out the Forest Box and learned more about both SLU's education through the Forestry Academy's student union and about parts of SLU's research through an inspiring lecture by Mehrdad Arshadi.
Abigail Turner from World Food Prize Foundation visited the round table discussions in Umeå and took the chance to welcome everyone. Photo: SLU YI
Of the students who wrote the essay, just over a hundred have chosen to submit them in order to have the opportunity to be selected and thus orally present their chosen problems and solutions to experts in the food field during an afternoon on one of SLU's campuses.
The roundtable discussion in Umeå is the third and last round of roundtable discussion held within this year's SLU Youth Institute. At the end of April, a talented group presented their essays to experts in Uppsala and a couple of weeks later there were committed students from Ystad, Landskrona and Lund who got to present their essays.