21-24 June, Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
Conference Theme: “Preparing for our Environmental Future”
Submission Deadline: 1 March 2012

The 2012 annual meeting of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS) will be held on 21-24 June 2012 in sunny Santa Clara, California. We invite your participation.

To submit an abstract follow these steps:
(1) choose a session type
(2) compose your abstract
(3) create descriptors of your topic area
(4) submit your abstract.

Each step is explained further below.

(1) SESSION TYPES
There are two (2) session types to choose from: Presentation Panels and Poster Sessions

Presentation Panels
Presentation panels are designed for presentation of research or other scholarly AESS-related endeavors. They consist of 3-4 presenters who are each allotted approximately 20-30 minutes (time includes presentation and discussion). Presentation panels are 1.5 hours in length, and will take place on June 22, 23, and 24 in parallel with discussion symposia and other presentation panels.

Poster Session
The poster session will take place during a reception on the Saturday evening of the conference. Poster presenters are expected to accompany their poster during the reception. Guidelines will be provided to those whose posters are accepted.

(2) ABSTRACT REQUIREMENTS
Your abstract should be no longer than 300 words. Please include:

• Title
• Overview of content type: For example, empirical research results, theoretical contribution, project description, pedagogical experiment, presentation of artistic work, personal or institutional experience, etc.
• Statement of content: Provide sufficient information that we can judge the quality of your proposal and its relevance to the conference. For example, research results might include focal question, method, results and conclusion; pedagogical experiment might include description of experiment, outcomes and lessons learned; presentation of artistic work might include creation of the work, presentation to the public and potential impact; etc.
• Justification for presentation: This might include applicability to the conference theme,contribution to your field, connection to the mission and goals of AESS and the broader environmental studies and sciences community,and/or scholarly and professional merit.

(3) DESCRIPTORS
We expect a tremendous variety of proposals. To assist the Program Committee in grouping presentations into coherent sessions, please briefly describe your topic area.  The submission form contains a box for up to five (5) terms that describe the thematic content of your proposal, similar to “key words” for a journal article submission but at a more general level. Create a set of ‘higher order’ terms that best describe your proposal – using terms such as environmental history, climate change, marine policy, campus sustainability, ESS pedagogy, environmental psychology, environmental theatre, biodiversity loss, sustainable development in Africa, ESS programming, etc., etc.

(4) SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT
To submit your abstract, please visit the AESS website: http://www.aess.info/.

REVIEW OF PROPOSALS
Abstracts are reviewed by the AESS Program Committee. Notice of acceptance or rejection of individual presentations will be sent out in mid-March. Following this, the committee will organize accepted presentations into sessions. Every effort will be made to group them into coherent thematic areas. Notice of your session assignment will be sent out by late March, about 3 months before the start of the conference.

CONTACT
If you have questions, contact Ken Wilkening, chair of the AESS Program Committee, at kew@unbc.ca.