Why BLOOM exists

Elena Krueper founded BLOOM. She grew up in Elkhart, where she wrote about environmental issues for The Pennant and the Youth Environmental Press Team and helped win unanimous approval of Elkhart’s Climate Recovery Resolution. She is now a Wells Scholar at Indiana University Bloomington studying environmental sustainability and international studies. BLOOM gives other northern Indiana students the chance to do the same kind of reporting.

The BLOOM Youth Journalism Northern Indiana Conference is organized by the Youth Environmental Press Team (YEPT), a program of Earth Charter Indiana, and hosted at Indiana University South Bend. The one-day conference brings together more than 150 people, including high school students from Elkhart, South Bend, Mishawaka and Middlebury, IU students and faculty, journalists, and environmental professionals.

After the 2025 censorship incident involving the Indiana Daily Student, BLOOM’s organizers see support for student journalism as urgent. BLOOM gives students the skills to report on their own communities and publish with confidence.

Our mission

Connect northern Indiana high school students with environmental professionals and reporting skills, so they can cover their own communities and try out careers in environmental communication.

Conference goals

• Teach reporting. Students learn to write, photograph and film stories about environmental issues in Indiana.
• Build connections. Students meet IU faculty, journalists and environmental professionals in workshops and at lunch.
• Publish student work. Stories from selected pitches can run on YEPT.org and in a print magazine that is part of the 89 Percent Project.

After the conference

Students whose pitches are selected at the story pitch session are paired with a mentor from YEPT. Mentors give feedback and edits until the story is ready. Finished stories run on YEPT.org and in the print magazine, which is distributed across Indiana and beyond.