Conference Workshop Descriptions 2024

Pre-conference workshops require advance registration and an additional fee.

All workshops will be held on Wednesday, November 6, but the times are subject to change.

 

NAAEE Affiliates Workshop

Full-Day
Wednesday, November 6, 8:30 AM–4:30 PM EST
Presenter: Bruce Young, Affiliate Relations Specialist, NAAEE; Sarah Bodor, Senior Director of Capacity Building, NAAEE
Price: $58

Join leaders from across the NAAEE Affiliate Network as we gather to celebrate the great work of the Network, spend time learning from each other's challenges and successes, and participate in two professional development sessions focused on emerging needs in our work. Lunch is included.

 

Centering Culture & Equity Through Community Engagement and Evaluation

Full-Day
Wednesday, November 6, 8:30 AM–4:30 PM EST
Presenters: Jean Kayira, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry; Susana Mateos, Antioch University New England/North Carolina State University; Elizabeth (Libby) McCann, Antioch University New England; Luciana Ranelli, Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve; Katie Lamoreaux, Youth Garden Project
Price: $58

Gain ideas and resources to design learning opportunities that uplift equity, varied identities, cultures, and communities. This interactive session interweaves NAAEE’s Community Engagement Guidelines with culturally responsive, equitable evaluation through the eeVAL project. Some understanding of evaluation and justice is encouraged. Ideally, participants join as teams of two from an organization/community context. Lunch is included.

Join this supportive, engaged learning network dedicated to authentic engagement and equitable practice. This interactive session interweaves NAAEE’s Community Engagement Guidelines with eeVAL, which is informed by culturally responsive, equitable evaluation. Workshop participants: (1) learn how NAAEE’s Community Engagement: Guidelines for Excellence (CEG) intersect with eeVAL; (2) are introduced to CEG’s Equity & Belonging expansion materials as they relate to evaluation considerations, (3) gain relevant facilitation and programming ideas; and (4) receive guidance for how to design relevant learning opportunities in their respective community contexts. The Community Engagement: Guidelines for Excellence identify evaluation as a key resource to guide equitable social change, inform programming, and authentically engage community members.

Consider joining us if you actively elevate equity and/or Justice40 in your community and/or if your lived experiences reflect the U.S. environmental movement’s historical privileging of identities, cultures, and communities. Ideally, participants join as teams of two from an organization/community context. Some understanding of equity, program evaluation, and community engagement is welcomed though not required.

As a participant you are expected to facilitate some sort of educational session and/or undertake an evaluative journey that centers culture and equity. We provide relevant resources, ongoing support, and professional development opportunities as needed.

This workshop will occur in two parts; attendees must commit to both. The first gathering will be in person at the NAAEE Conference in November 2024. The second gathering will be virtual and will take a deeper dive on themes of equity and belonging. Participants will have a choice of December 3 or December 10, 2:00–5:00 PM EST, for this follow-up gathering. Please save the date that works best for you on your calendar now!

 

 

Amplifying Youth Voices: Equity and Civic Engagement in Environmental Learning

Morning
Wednesday, November 6, 8:30 AM–12:00 PM EST
Presenters: Sarah Jennings, Earth Force; Krysten Dorfman, Earth Force; Vince Meldrum, Earth Force
Price: $38

Join us for a meaningful conversation showcasing our most loved tools that support the 3 Essential Experiences for cultivating environmental citizens. Join seasoned professionals to learn about the most requested Environmental Action Civics youth engagement tools with a special emphasis on amplifying youth voice as a cornerstone of equity.

  • Criteria-Based Decision Making: Learn to use criteria to prioritize hearing from all community members, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups.
  • Democratic Decision Making: Practice using democratic processes that value and incorporate diverse voices and perspectives, with a special focus on youth participation.
  • Asset & Power Mapping: Uncover strategies to identify and understand the dynamics of power within communities, with an emphasis on empowering those often sidelined in environmental decision-making processes, especially young individuals.

This workshop aims to prepare adult practitioners to create spaces where the ideas and opinions of young people are heard, respected, and acted upon, thereby reinforcing the principle that youth voice is essential to fostering true equity.

 

 

Putting Your Best Foot Forward: Developing Skills for Networking Success

Morning
Wednesday, November 6, 8:30 AM–12:00 PM EST
Presenters: Becky Thomas, Slippery Rock University; Samantha Bortz, Slippery Rock University; Shawn Davis, Slippery Rock University
Price: $0 (sponsored)

If you are feeling a healthy dose of nervous excitement about networking effectively in a post-pandemic world, you are not alone! You will build a bridge toward success in this fun and interactive workshop focused on peopling skills for young professionals that can be immediately applied at the NAAEE conference. This workshop is part of NAAEE’s Young and Emerging Professionals Initiative and is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association for Environmental Educators.

In this workshop, participants will:

  1. Create and practice an elevator pitch
  2. Create and practice a list of questions to engage others in professional "small talk"
  3. Practice and evaluate nonverbal communication techniques
  4. Create a plan for using/not using technology at the conference
  5. Discuss networking strategies and create a personal strategy
  6. Discuss challenges and growth opportunities in a World Café, including approaching DEIJA conversations, networking post-pandemic, and social anxiety or different abilities in networking situations.
  7. List takeaways from perspectives represented on a young professionals panel

Part 1: Peopling skills crash course — This portion of the workshop will introduce participants to the concept of an “elevator pitch,” including how to deliver an elevator pitch that leaves a lasting impression. Then, they will learn how to best engage colleagues/peers in conversation, emphasizing creating and practicing key questions that can get folks talking. Participants will also learn about verbal and nonverbal communication (e.g., eye contact, smiling, body language, taking notes, active engagement in session activities, technology and networking, phones/notifications) and will role-play these skills in sessions and while mingling. We will discuss strategies for using their time wisely by identifying conversation partners, learning to read the room, getting a good sense of who is willing to be a resource for you and who is not, and how to escape a conversation you don't want to be a part of. We will end this session with a discussion of how to engage in DEIJA conversations, focusing on best practices and the importance of self-care and reflection to maximize impacts without burning out.

Part 2: World Café (90 minutes) — Participants will immediately apply their new skills through an interactive World Café that will focus on deepening conversations around understanding identities/positionality and how that informs interactions, navigating peopling post-pandemic, and overcoming social anxiety in networking situations.

Part 3: Young-ish Professionals Panel — Participants will pitch questions to a panel of “young-ish professional” colleagues who represent diverse perspectives and identities and can speak to how they have navigated professional development and growing in the field.

 

Transformative Role Play Simulation for Negotiating Contentious Environmental Issues

Morning
Wednesday, November 6, 8:30 AM–12:00 PM EST
Presenter: Martha Keys, Something in Common
Price: $38 CANCELED

FIRE IN THE FOREST is an exciting and fast-moving interdisciplinary role-play simulation where teams represent displaced farmers, Indigenous tribespeople, a U.S. bank, environmental conservationists, government officials, intermediaries, and media. Participants are tasked with negotiating a solution among the widely divergent stakeholders.

Fire in the Forest (FIF) draws upon many disciplines, including sustainable land management, Indigenous studies, forestry, economics, international business, ecosystems studies, global climate change, and international affairs.

The complete simulation package contains a 100+ page instructor's manual which gives detailed descriptions of each role, rules and strategies for presenting the simulation, maps of the disputed areas, and an extensive reference section used in background preparation for the participants. Prior experience in the many disciplines is not a factor in the success of the role play. The exercise is suitable for students from grade 9 through college-university and for community groups.

FIF can be successfully staged in a single day. It can also be expanded to longer preparation and session times including a full 14-week university course, where the simulation is the capstone of several weeks’ preparation and practice.

FIF is an exciting and empowering experience, leaving a long-lasting and transformative impact on its participants. In terms of learning outcomes, the skill sets include negotiating among strongly opposed points of view and learning to identify with positions that may not have one's own sympathy, but doing so without sacrificing one's own values. Significantly, participants will understand the wider contexts in which all environmental disputes are embedded.

The simulation's methodology provides players with skills they can transfer to ANY environmental dispute or indeed ANY complex dispute.

We encourage participants to visit our website, fireintheforest.org.

 

Youth Mental Health in a Changing Climate: Keys to Resilience

Morning
Wednesday, November 6, 8:30 AM–12:00 PM EST
Presenters: Frank Niepold III, NOAA Climate Program Office; Heather Brake, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Laura Seeff, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Sara Newman sara_newman@nps.gov National Park Service; Irena Steiner Irena.Steiner@hhs.gov HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity 
Price: $38

Join environmental health experts and climate educators to bridge the gaps related to climate change and its impact on youth mental health. How can we equip our youth with mental and behavioral health tools for use during climate-related emergencies and how can our educators support these topics?

This workshop aims to bring together environmental educators, climate health scientists, and local and national agencies to understand how to best support youth during climate-related emergencies. We understand that the climate is rapidly evolving, and it has significant effects on mental health, particularly among youth. With younger generations’ tendencies to advocate for themselves through social justice initiatives and the availability of media sharing, we hope to explore not only how to address and educate on the topic, but to collaborate with this population and encourage the development of solutions at the community-level.

This session will bring together diverse perspectives to identify opportunities to better support youth mental health in the face of emerging climate threats. During this workshop, we will collaborate to develop solutions and share insights around the topic of climate change and youth mental health. These discussions will help to inform future research endeavors and areas of focus with plans to distribute key points and takeaways with attendees following the workshop.

 

Bridging Wild Pedagogies to Environmental Education

Afternoon
Wednesday, November 6, 1:00 PM–4:30 PM EST
Presenters: Megan Tucker, Simon Fraser University; Victor Elderton, Simon Fraser University 
Price: $38

This workshop invites teachers, and students to consider education differently through Wild Pedagogies. Discover how using the Wild Pedagogies touchstones challenge dominant paradigms of education, while inspiring teaching and learning that is relational, and ecological. We will embark together as Wild Pedagogues, reimagining, rethinking, and rewilding education.

We aim to inspire educators to rethink and reimagine traditional pedagogies while embracing an accessible approach where relations, ecology, and place responsiveness is prioritized. Through reflection, intentional walking, collaborative activity, and group discourse we invite nature as co-teacher, connecting more deeply to place. Urban settings like Pittsburgh are typically not considered “wild” so our intention is to spark thinking/doing around “re-wilding” education in places where it's seldom considered. As a lens, Wild Pedagogies can be a bridge to rethinking, and reimagining environmental education differently.

The workshop format provides enough time to deeply immerse in the content, allowing participants to attune to place, reflect, dialogue, and play with ideas.

  1. Introduction: What is Wild Pedagogies (WP) and touchstones? Question posed: How is, or could Nature be a co-teacher in your practice?
  2. Walk: Pose different prompts of nature as co-teacher regarding this place. Walk to a new location using a split walk (half in dialogue/half in silence).
  3. Arrive at new location: First, pair up with initial person you talked with on the walk (Questions: Noticing? Wondering? Reminding?) and then large group share. Split attendees into seven groups with each given a WP Touchstone. Groups will wander back to our initial gathering spot at their leisure. On the return walk explore place through the lens of the respective touchstone. Groups will create their own interpretation of the touchstone in a relational-embodied (non-lecture) presentation format of place.
  4. Sharing: Each group will present their embodied representation of the touchstone.
  5. Conclusion: Group debrief, where do we go from here with WP, connections to practices, eco change, and references/connection to WP community.

Wild Pedagogies is crucial in the current educational context because it challenges conventional teaching methods while advocating for accessible, experiential, environmental, and place-based learning, helping foster a deeper connection with the natural world, and promoting ecological, and social change. Our workshop aligns with all of the conference strands with Connecting to Nature as most prominent through nature as a co-teacher and connecting to place.

 

Creating Thriving Leaders, Creating Thriving Teams

Afternoon
Wednesday, November 6, 1:00 PM–4:30 PM EST
Presenter: Vik Mohan, Blue Ventures Conservation
Price: $38

In this interactive workshop, participants will reflect on how they maintain their well-being and the well-being of the teams they are part of. They'll receive a toolkit to help maintain their well-being and build thriving teams. They'll leave the workshop with specific well-being-related goals and inspired to take action.

This three-hour interactive workshop will explore all aspects of individual and team well-being, and inspire attendees to better understand and commit to actions that will better enable them and their teams to thrive.

By the end of the session all attendees will:

  1. Understand the risks to their wellbeing
  2. Understand burnout
  3. Know how best to maintain their wellbeing
  4. Better understand how to harness the power of hope in their work
  5. Have committed to specific goals/actions in support of their wellbeing
  6. Have mapped out their current support networks
  7. Have identified actions they can take to better support the wellbeing of their colleagues and teams

 

Systems Thinking to Enhance Your EE Leadership

Afternoon
Wednesday, November 6, 1:00 PM–4:30 PM EST
Presenters: Nicole Swedlow, Compass Education; Gitanjali Paul, Compass Education
Price: $38

Join Compass Education for a session full of systems thinking tools and games to develop your EE leadership capacities! This session will provide educators of all kinds with resources to reflect, grow, and enhance their impact. Plus, you’ll identify a learning or networking goal for the rest of the conference.

Our highly interactive workshop will develop participants’ capabilities to use systems thinking to build their EE leadership skills through games and group activities. This workshop will benefit any educator working in a formal or nonformal learning environment.

We will divide this workshop into three main segments to maximize engagement, each exploring a systems thinking tool that develops EE leadership skills. We will include self-reflection throughout the workshop to ensure participants have processing time.

Here is the workshop flow, including notes on the systems thinking leadership (STL Skills) developed in each section.

Introductions

  • Facilitator & Session Introductions
  • Icebreaker: Behavior Over Time Graph of your EE leader journey (so far)

STL Skills: Seeing the ‘big picture’; recognizing trends

Segment 1: EE Leadership in Practice

  • Leadership capacities all EE leaders need: Sustainable Habits of Mind (10 mindsets and skillsets that help us think and act for sustainability)
  • Leadership in Practice: Systems Iceberg Activity
  • Self-Reflection: EE Leadership Self-Assessment

STL Skills: Thinking systemically about everyday events; understanding mental models that drive our behaviors; embracing hope and possibility; visualizing complexity; innovating practices based on values and beliefs

Segment 2: Building Buy-In with The Amoeba Game

  • A role-play scenario to explore social diffusion theory
  • Ameoba Scenario Debrief
  • Self-Reflection: Strategically engaging your community in EE

STL Skills: Recognizing interpersonal dynamics; understanding social diffusion; engaging new people with EE; strategizing to build community buy-in

Segment 3: Gaining Perspective with The Sustainability Compass (55 minutes)

  • Sustainability Compass Perspective Activity
  • Elevator Pitch Challenge: ‘Why Does Your EE Work Matter?’
  • Self-Reflection: Get perspective on your work

STL Skills: Taking new perspectives; communicating with diverse stakeholders; thinking systemically about EE issues; visualizing complexity

Conclusions and Next Steps

  • Your Focus for Growth
  • Conference next steps: who/what do you need to learn from?

Two members from Compass Education, a global non-profit that supports education for sustainability through training in systems thinking practices, will facilitate this session. You can learn more about the organization and facilitators at www.compasseducation.org.

 

Using STEELS 3D Learning Science Practices: Connecting Nature to ALL

Afternoon
Wednesday, November 6, 1:00 PM–4:30 PM EST
Presenters: Onnolee Jansen, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; Amber Fogelsanger, Pennsylvania State Parks 
Price: $38

Developing deeper observation skills is a helpful technique that supports NGSS and STEELS science practices as well as connecting folks to nature. This method increases access and equity as it requires few materials, is appropriate for folks with disabilities, and can be accomplished anywhere. This training was developed by Lawrence Hall of Science.

The STEELS (Pennsylvania Science Technology Engineering and Environmental Literacy Standards) are being fully implemented in July 2025 and are designed to aid educators in developing learners who have the tools as well as the knowledge to engage in science. These standards build off NGSS and thus the content would be applicable to folks in other states.

The Making Observations training developed by BEETLES is a fantastic way to connect all learners with nature and supports the science and engineering practice of asking questions/defining problems. These strategies do not require many materials, can be accomplished with a variety of senses which are also available to folks with disabilities, and can also be done anywhere, increasing access to nature for learners in a variety of different environments.

The first half of the session involves hands-on activities that engage four of our five senses, with group discussions and self-evaluation in the second half.

 

Using the New "Educating for Climate Action and Justice: Guidelines for Excellence"

Afternoon
Wednesday, November 6, 1:00 PM–4:30 PM EST
Presenters: Bora Simmons, National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education; Kathayoon Khalil, New England Aquarium Martha Monroe, University of Florida; Lindsey Kirkland, Climate Generation
Price: $38

Take a deep dive into the newly published Educating for Climate Action and Justice: Guidelines for Excellence—the newest member of the NAAEE’s Guidelines for Excellence Series. The guidelines are designed to assist educators in developing and implementing effective programs that focus on climate change, address injustice, and ignite action.

We know that climate education can play a crucial role in raising awareness and understanding of climate change, its causes, impacts, and potential solutions. However, we also know we need to go beyond learning about climate change and building individual and collective capacity for effective climate action. Effective climate action depends on the ability to identify and critique alternative solutions and courses of action, select and plan appropriate action-taking and participate in individual and collective climate action. The question is how can we best design and implement effective climate education programs that truly empower just action?

To help address this question, NAAEE developed Educating for Climate Action and Justice: Guidelines for Excellence (2024)—the newest member of NAAEE’s Guidelines for Excellence series. These guidelines are designed to serve a broad range of individuals and organizations interested in using education, in its different forms and in varying settings— classroom teachers, museum educators, community educators, university instructors, faith leaders, career and technical education teachers, etc.—as a tool for working with communities to find just climate solutions.

This workshop gives you an opportunity to dig into the guidelines. Through a series of hands-on exercises, you’ll become familiar with five key characteristics of effective climate education that supports climate action and justice. You will also have the opportunity to explore case studies and other supporting materials.

Those registered for this workshop will receive a copy of the Educating for Climate Action and Justice: Guidelines for Excellence.