It was a great honor for me to join the amazing Conservation Nation team in September 2022. Together with my education colleague, Joanna Levi, we have been focused on building upon last year’s successful pilot of the Conservation Nation Academy and Youth Advisory Council while facilitating new partnerships and creating a solid foundation for scaling our education program nationally in the coming years. Here are some recent highlights of our work.Â
Conservation Nation Academy
Conservation Nation Fellow Taylor Rabe’s visit to The Washington School for Girls last fall was such a powerful experience. In the photo below, middle school students sound out their best wolf howls after meeting with Taylor and hearing about her experiences working for the Yellowstone Wolf Project. We are building on the 2022 pilot program with this school, which clearly showed the importance of connecting students with relatable role models and facilitating meaningful interactions to help students see themselves as conservation champions.
Over the past few months, we have been working with talented students such as Emyko (pictured below) to conduct Zoom interviews with a large and diverse group of conservation champions doing exciting work for our planet! These interviews will be part of a fun and interactive on-line activity that is part of the next phase of the Conservation Nation Academy curriculum.
Youth Advisory Council
We are fortunate to have so many passionate young voices contributing to our mission work! Our Youth Advisors this year have been reviewing and commenting on our education programming, coordinating speaker panels featuring our grantees, designing content for our social media, and helping to design a Teen Leaders in Conservation program for next year. Their collaboration has been extremely valuable and enjoyable.
Conservation Nation Club
Composting, making recycled paper, and growing salad greens for their class pet (a bearded dragon) are some of the activities we have tackled this winter with a determined group of girls who wanted to start a Conservation Nation Club at The Washington School for Girls. We are looking forward to venturing outdoors for nature hikes, stream studies, and birding as we head into the spring.
Cultivating Meaningful Partnerships
We cannot do the work of supporting tomorrow’s conservation champions alone, and we have been actively building strong relationships with many partners to help us achieve our education goals. For example, we are facilitating programs with Earth Conservation Corps and Anacostia Watershed Society to provide students with hands-on opportunities this spring to explore nature as an enhancement to their participation in Conservation Nation Academy lessons. We are excited to have Meridian Treehouse as a partner in developing exciting new digital lessons featuring interviews with Conservation Nation grantees and Caroline Brewer Books as a partner in training teachers on an outdoor literacy curriculum as part of our Conservation Nation Academy. Ambika Anand Prokop, the creator of Greenfeet Guides, is working with us to develop a much-needed Educator’s Guide to Exploring Nature in Washington, DC, and Joanna and I will be providing professional learning and guidance to area teachers as the education liaisons for the DC City Nature Challenge. We have also had the joy of partnering with Coaches Across Continents to help them provide training to educators throughout the globe on the topic of climate & gender.Â
It has been an exciting first six months and I am looking forward to sharing more updates throughout the year!
