CAEE 2024 Conference eeVoices: The Power of Stories

A successful collaboration between the City of Wheat Ridge and Wheat Ridge High School created opportunities for students and grew a community resource through workshops and field trips to the community garden. Hear personal stories and experience some activities that kept students engaged while they learned how to care for the environment.

Evaluation data can tell powerful stories! Learn how we use evaluation-driven narratives to improve, demonstrate the value of, and seek future funding for middle/high school programming and educator development in underserved communities at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC).

Environmental health data (EHD), like that collected for air and water quality, are complicated but important to help people make decisions about their health. Our team empowers children to share their own experiences, enriching adults’ understanding of EHD. We offer tailored resources for use in formal and informal educational settings.

Stories matter to bringing environmental justice (EJ) to EE. In Part 1, we center the ethics that allow us to receive and share stories of EJ, with respect, authenticity, and reciprocity. Intergroup Dialogue—especially relationship-building techniques and learning on social identities—support teachers ready to build EJ curriculum.

In Part 2, small groups build curriculum that aligns EJ with Colorado state standards, while engaging stages 3 and 4 of Intergroup Dialogue (approaching “hot topics,” creating a “product” together). Participants create lessons from case studies of environmental racism, or indigenous stories. We close with self-reflection to promote cultural competence and justice.

Inspire young Black Americans to pursue forest and conservation careers by sharing the stories and advice of those who have taken similar career paths and learn more about the history of Black Americans in green jobs.