KAEE 2024 Conference

The Narrative 4 story exchange is a strategy for using reciprocal storytelling, deep listening, and perspective taking to foster curiosity, empathy, and meaningful connections. Storytellers share their stories with a partner and actively listen while their partner shares their story. The group gathers together and each participant retells their partner’s story in the first person. This session informs educators through experience how they can use narrative storytelling to advance the cause of environmental education by helping students see themselves in the story of their place and time.

Narrative 4 teacher-facilitators around the world use this method to provoke curiosity and drive inquiry-based learning in their classrooms in any subject or interdisciplinary effort. N4 also connects partner schools and facilitators with each other in our global network, so interested educators can build intentional collaboration across all distances and divides to bring diverse learning opportunities to their students, through the human face of story. Participants can expect to leave with a strong feeling of community and connection to their fellow educators, as well as a humanities-flavored way to bring science education to all learners.

Logistics:

• Pre-registration is required during conference registration at kaee.org/conference.

Each person is unique, as are their interests. However, the landscape of EE is dominated by science-based learning—a subject that doesn’t appeal to everyone. In this workshop, we will discuss the value of interdisciplinary studies in EE programming and practice (through case studies and provided mock lessons) incorporating not just science, but history, math, literacy, the arts, and physical/mental health and wellbeing. While this session will be geared primarily towards youth programming, there can be important take-aways for programs of any demographic. Participants are welcome to bring their own program guides and lesson plans as well.

This presentation will outline the Nature Explorer Program: A supplemental environmental education program for homeschool families provided by extension staff at Kentucky State University’s Environmental Education and Research Center (EERC). During this 10 month program, home school groups from Franklin and surrounding counties are able to visit Kentucky State’s EERC on a biweekly basis to engage in collaborative and experiential opportunities in Kentucky’s natural areas. This informational session will allow participants to walk through the process of building their own long-term, nature-focused homeschool program from start to finish, including but not limited to: curriculum building, community engagement, and assessments.

Environmental stewardship with opportunities for community involvement abound, but urban, community-based stewardship projects also experience high failure rates. Labor requirements, lack of appropriate experience, resources, and lack of long-term planning leads to low quality implementation and lack of continued interest. This session will describe two successful environmental stewardship projects with different levels of community involvement. Participants will be asked to describe their own experiences, and presenters will provide their formula for improving environmental stewardship projects.

The Frankfort/Franklin County Joint Task Force on Invasives was formed in 2021 with a goal to develop a structured invasive species plan and framework for regular community and agency activity on the issue. This community led initiative has resulted in an approved city plan, mapping of county-wide priority areas, fundraising, and planning for paid positions with partnering agencies to address task force needs.

Olmsted Parks Conservancy in partnership with Kentucky State University began a brush management demonstration trail in 2022 in Louisville, KY to address citizen and agency questions about whether using small ruminant livestock (goats) can be an efficient, sustainable habitat management tool compared to traditional, herbicide-based methods. Preliminary results and the methods used to address community interest have generated additional support toward expanding natural areas management while also addressing community concerns.

Successful, long-term environmental stewardship requires experience, evidence-based methods, and a structured process. Sustainable community engagement requires persistent efforts, immersive opportunities, and a focus on community needs. Although these two can be at odds, they can be effectively combined with a structured approach.

Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) "explores sustainability and its educational responses in Early Childhood Education (ECE [Davis, 2022]). Through Environmental Education and incorporating nature in classroom learning, teachers enable children to have positive experiences in nature and encourage respect for our planet. Sustainability is an abstract concept for young children. How do we implement classroom practices that are meaningful to children and encourage them to engage in sustainability practices? This prospect becomes complex as Early Childhood Educators work with with children from increasingly diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic backgrounds. Participants in this session will engage in dialogue about what ECEfS looks like in practice for teachers of young children and in teacher preparation programs. We will engage in activities that can be easily replicated in classrooms with young children.

This session will focus on multiple approaches to creating meaningful, engaging, purposeful, and joyful programs or lessons. Building off of the basic "fundamentals" of a quality lesson, attendees will think about ways to bring their lessons to the next level of success. Utilizing song and dance, rhythm and rhyme, kinesthetics and earworms, we'll approach topics from a joy building view with the final goal of attaining a higher level of comprehension, retention, and action from lessons.