Abstract: This naturalistic, non-experimental inquiry explored relationships among life, human life, and place in school communities along with their expressions in school curriculum. I used educational criticism and connoisseurship to richly describe, interpret meaning, evaluate significance, and discern thematics surrounding relationships and how those relationships were expressed in the curriculum. Postmodern ecology provided the framework for acknowledging ecological precarity and performing the critical, as in essential, work of deconstructing what harms life that could be reconstituted as nourishment. The first study question was: What relationships exist among life, human life, and place in school communities? To answer the question, ecological data collection included historical landscape changes, ecological observations outside the school building. The second research question was: How are those relationships expressed in the curriculum? To answer the question, four teachers in three suburban schools who included ecological relationships into curriculum, more-than-human life in curriculum, went outdoors with students, and/or taught interdisciplinary lessons. Initial interviews were conducted. Participant observations were bookended by pre/post interviews with teachers. Curriculum materials included planning documents, lessons, materials, and experiences. For both study questions, I maintained a field notebook and reflexive journal throughout the study. I found that ecological structure, lawns, and educational structure permeability played an important role in movement around the schoolyards and the curriculum. Teachers skillfully crafted curriculum where predetermined content met their own intentions. The resulting educational situation was fluid and cyclical. At the confluence of flows and cycles, I found that the schoolyard was an ambiguous place in the communities at large and that many lifeforms at the suburban schools. There were many relationships that existed in and around the schoolyard that were commonplace or every day. I propose a new type of curricula, the camouflage curriculum, that holds more opportunities to connect academic content to specific places. The significance of the findings was a reframed view of suburban schools. The findings supported the addition of place to Eisner’s ecology of school. The camouflage curriculum opens a portal to renewed relationships among life.

Here are some of the projects that were presented and/or published while a doctoral student:

• Cultivating Meaning and Community with Garden Education, American Association for Teaching and Curriculum, 2022

• The Third Option: Education as a Commons, Ohio Valley Philosophers of Education Society, 2022

• Education as a Commons: Tensions & Sustenance in our Education setting, Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education, 2022

• Leigh, M. Textbox, “Unraveling Dominion: Critical Whiteness as a Catalyst” in Lahman, M. (2022). Writing and Representing Qualitative Research. Sage Publications.

• Romero, D., Leigh, M., & Lo, W. (2022). Pre-service Teachers’ Reflective Writing and Learning in Early Field Experiences, Journal of. Educational Research and Innovation: Vol. 9: No. 1., Accepted, September 2022.

•  A Case Study of Antiracist Curriculum in a Predominantly White Community, University of Northern Colorado, 2020

• Space and place: A Conscious Mimesis to Subvert the School-to-Prison Pipeline, Golden Antiracist Collective, 2020

Abstract: Youth have the potential to confront war, poverty, education, and injustice if and only if they are given the opportunity and the support (Giroux, 2009). This was the framing I used in developing the curriculum for the Coldharbour Sustainable Living Center (CSLC), a school in the process of opening in Gunnison, Colorado. The disciplines of science education, sustainable education, and citizenship education were explored in a literature review that informed the development of curriculum. Science education is used as a lens for local ecology, geology, and anthropology; also as a means to understand collaboration, community discussion, and environmental issues. The CSLC’s goal is to include sustainability skills such as: gardening, food preservation, animal husbandry, clothing making, and community organizing in all educational programs. Sustainability is the frame in which the experiences are engaged.  Citizenship education is complex and ever changing. Students will explore three types of citizenship at the CSLC: personally responsible citizenship, participatory citizenship, and social justice oriented citizenship. These big ideas were combined in a student focused and student choice-oriented manner using the Understanding by Design framework for planning curriculum (Wiggins & McTighe, 2006). The CSLC is slated to open in the summer of 2013, when the curriculum will likely be implemented in the organization’s inaugural year of programming.  

Graduated Cum Laude. Member of the Tri-Beta Biological Honor Society, Sustainability Coalition, Coal Creek Watershed Coalition, and Colorado Chapter of the Wildlife Society. As a member of these organizations, I participated in and planned many events. We traveled the state to explore ecological and cultural resources. For example: we planned a showing of the film, the 11th Hour, that showcased how climate change will impact our rural community in southwest Colorado. I was the primary researcher and obtained funding for a Thorton undergraduate research project. I collaborated on a grant for funding a solar array on Kelly Hall. We received funding which was matched by other organizations which grew the project to a $250,000 educational display.

Here are some of the projects I worked on as an undergraduate that were presented and/or published:

• "Stream macroinvertebrate response to seasonal leaf inputs originating in alpine tundra in the southern rocky mountains, Nellie Creek (Hindsdale County, CO)" 

• "Parsimonious management plan: conservation of the uncompahgre fritillary butterfly and management of native and domestic ungulates?"

• "Uncompahgre fritillary monitoring, inventory, genetic sampling, and mapping: 2008 report and status"

• "Considerations for life assisted skiing in the time of climate change"