Environmental Education

According to the North American Association for Environmental Education, it is a "process that helps individuals, communities, and organizations learn more about the environment, and develop skills and understanding about how to address global challenges. It has the power to transform lives and society. It informs and inspires. It influences attitudes. It motivates action." (North American Association for Environmental Education, n.d.). Check out more of their work here https://naaee.org/about/ee. 

Environmental education utilizes the power of the outdoors and more-than-human world to inspire better relationships between humans and the planet. As an educator, I enjoy teaching with environmental education principles as I believe every person should be equally able to build a deep and reciprocal relationship with our planet.

The Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) is a community-based learning program through the Environmental Studies program at the University of Oregon. The program fosters community engagement by matching student-led teams to local organizations to address the crucial environmental issues present in our community. Aves Compartidas is an environmental education program, a part of ELP. In collaboration with Ecology in Classrooms & Outdoors (ECO), El Camino del Río/River Road Elementary School, and Mt. Pisgah Arboretum, a team of ten students designed and implemented curricula centered on migratory birds. Our curriculum centered on watershed communities in Guanajuato, Mexico, and Oregon, USA. Throughout the project, we emphasized bilingual instruction in both English and Spanish to support language development and cultural connection. Using frameworks developed by the Learning in Places Collaborative, we created cultural, community-based, and outdoor learning experiences that fostered positive socio-ecological relationships. Over spring 2025, our team facilitated five weeks of classroom lessons and led three field trips – one each for the third, fourth, and fifth grades.