2 minutes with: Evie Warner

Joe Arney — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 21:49:37 +0000

2 minutes with: Evie Warner Joe Arney Tue, 04/21/2026 - 15:49

Iris Serrano

Evie Warner (EnvDes’26) had never visited Colorado before she chose to attend CU Boulder. Now, she has built quite the second home at CU in ways both conventional—as a leader with Industrial Designers Society of America—and not, as a proud bee booster. She is the William W. White outstanding senior for the environmental design department.

Conversation edited for length and clarity.

Evie Warner isn’t just a skilled student—she's a bee booster whose affection for the arthropods earned her the nickname of the bee girl. Courtesy Evie Warner.

So, for the uninitiated, what can you tell me about EPOD?
So, I came here specifically for the environmental design department, and found EPOD along the way. It stands for environmental products of design, and I love how hands-on we get in making real, physical things that solve meaningful problems. And while sustainability is not a requirement, I appreciate the opportunities to connect my projects to nature and community.

What’s your favorite part about it?
I love the interdisciplinary aspect most of all, because I like to do a lot of different things—and it's really nice that in environmental design, I can bring my interests outside of class into my work. My projects have this theme of connecting people in urban environments to nature.

My other weird niche, I guess, is bees.

Whoa, bees? Like, the insects?
Everyone knows me as the bee girl. I do a lot of pollinator advocacy stuff outside of school and with the city of Boulder, and pollinator gardening, stuff like that.

OK, but how’d you get that nickname?
I was studying abroad, in Copenhagen, last spring, and I was in a class called Sustainable by Design. We had to go on a field trip to this urban bee place. I guess I just looked really excited or something, because everyone at my table turned and looked at me. So, I became the bee girl in that class. I didn't even have to say anything.

Other than saving the bees, what else have you done at CU?
I’m the secretary and treasurer of IDSA. The board really cares about networking, of course, but the core of it is this group of students who just want to make things and have fun. That’s the part that keeps it running.

What’s a highlight from your time as a member?
Definitely the first designathon we hosted. We collaborated with Lasko, so our challenge was to design an air purifier that fits better into a home with limited space. We were split up into teams; I think we were called Pretty Princess Power, or something.

Great name. Did you end up winning?
There was no official winner, but we made something really awesome—like, a portfolio-worthy project—in 24 hours. I was really proud of us, it just felt good to be on a team that really collaborated and functioned well. We all had different skills, but we all worked together so well.

Time for the scary question: What’s next?
This summer, I'm working in environmental education in California at a nature-based summer camp, so I'll be teaching kids about nature—and I get paid to go camping, essentially. It's just going to be a nice break, I think, from coming out of intense academics.

Iris Serrano is studying strategic communication and journalism at CMDI. She covers student news and events for the college.

Celebrating the Class of 2026

Evie Warner is graduating as the outstanding senior for the environmental design department. From her class projects to Copenhagen, Warner blends creativity and nature in her work.

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Coloring outside the mines

Regan Widergren — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:27:14 +0000

Coloring outside the mines Regan Widergren Thu, 11/06/2025 - 17:27

Joe Arney

When you represent the interests of an industry like mining, you’re bound to make a few enemies.

In the case of PDAC—the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada—an increasingly sharp thorn in its side is a collective, Beyond Extraction, that finds creative ways to disrupt the mining group’s annual convention.

Its latest salvo? A coloring book that shows children a less-sanitized view of mining’s environmental impact than the industry acknowledges.

“All our projects seek to counter something PDAC is doing,” said Zannah Mae Matson, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at CMDI. A previous campaign, she said, involved creating an audio tour of the minerals exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, that drew attention to mining’s labor and environmental calamities.

For the coloring book, Beyond Extraction took aim at PDAC’s educational wing, Mining Matters, which builds lesson plans to extend the industry’s ideology into Canadian schools. Mining Matters also creates coloring books featuring kid-friendly characters who show that when mining companies complete operations, “they remediate everything, and everybody’s happy—the water’s clean, the trees are fine,” Matson said. “Whatever.”

The title Beyond Extraction selected for its book, What It Takes, counters Mining Matters’ message—that mines give jobs, technology, bicycles and so on. The project argues that the industry doesn’t give those things without cost. It explains technical concepts like free-entry staking and labor exploitation in ways that allow teachers and caregivers to start conversations with kids about adverse impacts of mining.

Simplifying the message

“The biggest challenge was simplifying,” Matson said. “The illustrations had to be colorable and fun, and the message had to be approachable.”

The book is not about ending mining; rather, it offers a more complete picture of mining’s human and environmental impacts. That’s crucial as the industry positions itself as a champion of the sustainability movement, since the metals miners unearth help power alternatives to fossil fuels.

“We don’t live in a world where nothing needs to be taken out of the ground—but there is this false dichotomy that if you don’t like mining, then you love oil,” Matson said. “We can’t fall into this trap of believing we all bear the same responsibility for mining because we all use a laptop computer.”

Instead, she said, we need to introduce lower levels of consumption while holding companies accountable to higher standards.

We need to create higher levels of standards to hold companies accountable, and introduce lower levels of consumption.”

Zannah Mae Matson, assistant professor

The Beyond Extraction collective has released a coloring book, which Zannah Mae Matson co-illustrated, in five languages. Its message is designed to disrupt the work mining organizations do to influence curricula and position themselves as champions of sustainability. Photos by Kimberly Coffin.

“As someone who’s been researching mining for a long time, and seeing how these companies cover up the problems they cause, I have serious doubts they will be the heroes of a green, more just future,” she said.

Matson’s research investigates how infrastructure impacts communities and the environment. That might mean what a road system in Colombia indicates about its colonial history, or how mining operations create lasting damage to nearby communities. It’s work that takes her around the globe but is especially prevalent in her native Canada, which has worldwide mining operations.

That’s a key reason Beyond Extraction is translating the coloring book into different languages. It launched last year, but this spring, translations into American English, French, Spanish and Portuguese came online—countering Mining Matters’ multilingual approach, which also has editions in Indigenous languages, like Inuktitut.

“It’s so problematic that these materials are presented in the languages of people that the mining industry has dispossessed,” Matson said.

The collective hopes to translate its coloring book into Dene, Inuktitut and Cree, but for now, it’s too costly for Beyond Extraction’s budget activism. The book relied on volunteer members’ expertise in media studies, landscape architecture and beyond; Matson also was one of two illustrators.

Like many researchers, Matson is used to collaboration. Beyond Extraction, she said, is next level.

“When you’re facing such complex problems, you need collective ways of resisting them and finding answers,” she said. “It’s nice to know you’re not alone, and feel your work is rising to meet those challenges.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in media production and strategic communication.

Mining companies are positioning themselves as heroes in the transition to sustainability. A coloring book illustrated by a CMDI professor is throwing shade on the idea.

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2 minutes with: Evie Warner

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Coloring outside the mines

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