Onsite
Beyond the Lens: Hands-On EE Filmmaking Workshop Emphasizing Video Storytelling

When used wisely, filmmaking becomes a potent and empowering EE tool. On the other hand, good ideas, cameras and editing software alone are rarely enough to produce films that effectively engage diverse audiences. Video journalism, like any profession, necessitates learning fundamental tenants, beginning with implementing the lost art of storytelling and ending with film evaluation. Appropriately, to anyone outside the film industry, video making can be daunting and frustrating.

The non-profit organization, Earth Initiatives (EI), has developed “ZOOM IN,” a crash course in video journalism that has successfully engaged middle and high schoolers, educators and hardcore scientists. During workshops, attendees are introduced to invaluable filmmaking skills, strategies and frameworks, enabling educators to affordably enhance their existing EE programs or give traction to new ones. Our workshops are informed by Earth Initiatives' combined expertise in environmental science, videography, digital storytelling and film production.

During our NAAEE, hands-on, workshop, participants will cooperate in teams guided to partake in filmmaking’s best practices. Attendees will learn about and then be thrown into the fire to master basic storyboarding, film fundamentals, messaging for targeted audiences, editing and post-production. Workshop deliverable? The successful completion of collaborative EE films. Summative group discussions, enhanced by EI’s ZOOM IN curriculum handouts, resources, templates, and EI’s Global Media Forge website, will help participants enhance their EE programs through competent filmmaking approaches.

Jenn Paul Glaser, Earth Initiatives
Ryan W. Vachon, Earth Initiatives & University of Colorado at Boulder
Nathaniel Kramer, Earth Initiatives

Location: Oakland Convention Center
$85, includes lunch

Offsite
An Awakening of Spirits: Traditional Education, Native Thought, and Culture

Note Hours: 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

‘An Awakening of Spirits’ is the fourth in a series of annual workshops that provide opportunities to explore Native teaching and learning through a stronger understanding of Traditional Environmental Knowledge. Experience shows that culturally appropriate environmental education broadens Native youths’ ability to deal with today’s serious environmental issues, and breakthrough educational approaches are being developed using Traditional Knowledge taken from observational Native science. In this year's workshop participants will visit Alcatraz Island, an important site in the Native American cultural and spiritual revitalization movement, and connect with local Native urban communities to analyze environmental issues and demonstrate best practices for teachers in the Native world.

Participants will depart the conference hotel at 7:30 a.m. and arrive at Alcatraz Island at 9:30 a.m. Our hosts from National Park Services will lead a tour of the island and engage participants in an open discussion of how the American Indian Movement occupation (Nov. 20, 1969, to June 11, 1971) transformed the island into a symbol of Native American renaissance and resistance, awakening the spirit and sparking a return to traditional Native ways. Local Native and non-Native educators will share their experiences working with Native students, and participants will learn the skills and knowledge needed to connect with students in an urban Native community. This workshop furthers the discussion on how culture and spiritual ways can be used in environmental education. The goal of this workshop is to have educators leave with a sense of understanding, confidence, and kinship.

Scott Frazier, Project Indigenous
Vina Smith, Ft. Peck Tribes
Albert Ybarra, Project Indigenous
Jeff J. Baker, University of British Columbia/University of Saskatchewan

Location: Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay
Hours: 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
$85, includes lunch

Onsite
EECAPACITY: Creating Opportunities for Social Innovation in EE Practices

EECapacity, EPA’s national EE training program, applies social innovation theory to answer the question: What is the practice of EE in a world where the majority of people experience the environment in cities? We create “platforms,” including online courses, social media, face-to-face workshops, and grants to state consortia, which bring together professional environmental educators and an emerging group of youth and community development professionals implementing environmentally related activities in cities. Through exchanging ideas, diverse groups of EE professionals will create new EE practices reflecting changing demographics.

EECapacity has created interactive tools that contribute to capacity building and exchange of ideas among EE and youth development professionals, and are being used to test our “hypothesis” about how creating opportunities for exchange of ideas leads to innovations in EE practice. These tools include an online, open access “eeEcology” mapping activity that enables practitioners to articulate and reflect on their practical theory of change, and a social network analysis survey that fosters thinking about the spectrum of organizations from which educators obtain information and ideas. These and other tools and research results will be the focus of the workshop, which is designed for practitioners and researchers.

Marianne Krasny, Cornell University
Yue Li, Cornell University
Akiima Price, Akiima Price Consulting
John Fraser, New Knowledge Organization
Rupu Gupta, New Knowledge Organization
Tania Schusler, Loyola University Chicago
Augusto Medina, EECapacity Project

Location: Oakland Convention Center
$60, includes lunch

Onsite
Phenology Monitoring and Citizen Science: Partnerships for Eductors and Scientists

Is climate change affecting seasonal plant and animal responses? Why should you care? Learn about the importance of phenology (the study of seasonal plant and animal life cycle events) and it’s relationship to the environment, climate change, and YOU. We'll provide an interactive introduction to the science of phenology and show how you can incorporate meaningful data collection and analysis into your formal or informal teaching through participation in the Nature’s Notebook Citizen Science program. Hear how NatureBridge and the National Park Service (through the California Phenology Project), Cooperative Extension Programs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as teachers and volunteers are currently engaged in this program. This fun, hands-on workshop will give you all the tools you need to begin making a difference with students of all ages. You will learn about current phenological research and data collection across the US, and we will provide you with educational tools, resources, and ways to connect with other educators implementing citizen science in their programming.

The workshop will feature an introductory classroom session with background information on phenology and the Nature’s Notebook Citizen Science program. The workshop also includes a field component that will cover how to set up a monitoring site and how to collect data. We will also provide an opportunity to discuss ways in which to customize this type of program for your educational setting, and show you all of the tools available to you to collect and analyze data with your students.

Elizabeth R. Matthews, University of California, Santa Barbara/California Phenology Project
Kerri McAllister, NatureBridge Golden Gate
LoriAnne Barnett, Arizona Cooperative Extension
Susan J. Mazer, University of California, Santa Barbara
Megan Platt, NatureBridge, Santa Monica Mountains Campus

Location: Oakland Convention Center and Golden Gate National Recreation Area
$120, includes lunch

Onsite
Connect Children to Place Through Outdoor Biology Instuctional Strategies (OBIS)

Educators at the Lawrence Hall of Science developed Outdoor Biology Instructional Strategies (OBIS) as a collection of activities designed to connect concepts taught within formal and informal learning environments with the natural world. While OBIS is being updated, the original collection of activities is available online for public use (at www.outdoorbiology.com). In its essence, OBIS cultivates conservation education by connecting children to their local ecosystems through exploration and guided inquiry, while modeling skills for future independent investigation and discovery.

This workshop will introduce activities and strategies that enable educators to use the immediate outdoor environment to invigorate their learning community. Participants will spend most of the workshop outdoors, in a nearby urban green space, asking authentic ecological questions and using simple methods and materials to explore these questions using various OBIS activities. How many different plants species grow in typical manicured urban grasslands? How do communities establish sustainable populations? During the discussion, we will make connections to the K-12 Framework of Science Education Scientific Practices and explore ways to begin incorporating age-appropriate strategies to educate and empower children about environmental issues.

The workshop will highlight research results that expose how academic performance and sense of stewardship increase as a result of meaningful experiences in the local environment. We will discuss how connection to nature and place often stimulate higher-order cognition, motivation, citizenship and sense of empowerment when confronted by environmental issues.

Participants will walk away with activities, next step strategies and knowledge of other free online resources created at the Lawrence Hall of Science, to support their efforts.

Joanna Snyder, Lawrence Hall of Science
Karen Mendelow Nelson, UC Berkeley

Location: Oakland Convention Center
$65, includes lunch

Onsite
Integrating Climate and Energy Literacy into Environmental Education

This workshop, led by experts at the National Center for Science Education, explores the challenges and opportunities for infusing climate and energy topics into environmental education. Participants will receive copies of and learn about the Climate Literacy Essential Principles and the companion Energy Literacy Essential Principles. Through a mix of lectures, breakout discussions and interactive dialogue, participants will learn how to address controversy, misinformation and misconceptions about climate and energy-related topics, and will have the opportunity to develop and share plans and insights into how to effectively integrate relevant content into the "teachable moments" of environmental education. This workshop will also explore how the Next Generation Science Standards, which include energy as a crosscutting theme and cover human impacts on biodiversity and other global change caused by human activities, can be used to empower learners and help them achieve the Environmental Education Guidelines for Excellence.

Mark McCaffrey, National Center for Science Education

Location: Oakland Convention Center
$65, includes lunch

EE Standards for Pre-Service Education

Anyone training future teachers should know NAAEE’s strategies for incorporating professional EE standards into their programs: Share sample assessments, activities, and exemplary models. Required for EE program recognition under the U.S. National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.

Members of NAAEE's Pre-Service Advisory Board will provide an overview of NAAEE's involvement with NCATE and development of the EE Standards. Based on NAAEE's "Guidelines for the Preparation and Professional Development of Environmental Educators," the standards are used by NAAEE reviewers to examine reports from universities seeking NCATE accreditation. The standards also are used by educator preparation programs that are not part of the NCATE accreditation system to provide a structure for ensuring that graduates are well prepared to teach about the environment in nonformal education venues.

Teresa Schretter Coker, Green Mountain College
Courtney Crim, Trinity University
Terry Wilson, Western Kentucky University
Molina Walters, Arizona State University
Billy Bennett, Eastern Kentucky University
Melinda Wilder, Eastern Kentucky University
Himanshu Gopaian, Winstom-Salem State University

Location: Oakland Convention Center
$150, includes lunch