Freshly Brewed Coffee, Hot Water with Assorted Organic Tea Bags, Ice Water, Seasonal Fresh Fruit Tray, Fresh House-Made Oatmeal with Cinnamon, Brown Sugar and Raisins, An Assortment of Yogurts, Freshly Baked Raspberry Oat Bars, GF Blueberry Muffins
Discover how one educator’s NCEE certification project morphed into an ongoing field trip experience for 5th grade students at Waxhaw Elementary and a new environmental education course at Wingate University. Participants will gain insights into how strategic partnerships between public school educators, natural resource professionals, and universities can connect students at all levels and create long lasting and impactful programs.
This workshop explores common barriers that impact parents' and practitioners' ability to engage in outdoor play with their students or children. Many caregivers and educators understand the benefits of time in nature; translating that knowledge into practice remains a challenge. Rather than offering “tips and tricks,” this session introduces gamification as a strategy for creating lifestyle changes. Discover how the use of challenges, rewards, storytelling, and more, can spark lasting lifestyle change. Collaborate with peers to design your own gamified tool, ready to use in your classroom or home.
Does learning about climate change and the biodiversity crisis stress out children and teens? What are the most effective ways of presenting challenging information about the state of our environment? Join Rachel Woods for a conversation about the impacts of climate change on children and teen’s mental health and learn about actions we can take to support the youth in our lives. Information will be presented from recent reports published by ecoAmerica and the American Psychological Association.
Owner and Lead Teacher, Dragonfly Nature Programs and Path to Positive Climate Ambassador
I am the owner and lead teacher of Dragonfly Nature Programs. We design and teach nature studies to young people in schools all over the Triangle Area. I also volunteer as a NC Climate Ambassador with ecoAmerica's Path to Positive Community. I advocate for climate action along with... Read More →
Saturday September 12, 2026 9:30am - 10:30am EDT Room 7B
Adult volunteers can be a great resource for collecting data and completing tasks at your site but they can come with their own challenges. During this session, we will talk about how we have been working with our enthusiastic volunteers to improve our Community Science projects by providing meaningful applications for their data collection efforts. The NC Arboretum hosts five Community Science projects completely run by dedicated volunteers and some of these volunteers have been working with these projects for over 10 years. We will detail the steps we have taken to get to know each individual better and learn how to work with each unique group and their team dynamics. We will talk through challenges we have come across and the ways we have navigated them over the last two years.
This session will help nonformal and environmental educators prepare for leadership responsibilities rarely covered in traditional training. Led by Jonathan Marchal and Chip Freund, the session will explore practical approaches to skills such as marketing, hiring, budgeting, grant administration, supervision, and evaluation while helping participants identify peer expertise and conference connections that can support growth.
Chip is a former product marketing executive in the technology sector. In 2017 he began his encore carrer as a full-time fine art landscape and nature photographic artist and public speaker. Chip holds a BA with a double-major in environmental biology and computer science from Wittenberg... Read More →
Fairy-crosses, blue honey, and carnivorous plants found in the Carolinas are just a few of the natural wonders that storyteller Liz Z Pardue explores in this talk. Hear why the strange, the eerie, and the wonderful are the most powerful teaching tools we have, and how curiosity sparked through story makes lessons last.
This session will dive into the challenges and opportunities of translating classroom lesson plans to informal contexts. Using the Ready, Set, Resilience curriculum as a case study, we will discuss the successes and obstacles we’ve encountered so far as we reconfigure standards-aligned content to meet the needs of a broader audience in informal EE settings. In particular, we will focus on the role of collaboration with educators and researchers.
What happens when original storytelling and live animals travel from the North Carolina Zoo to libraries across the state? This summer, we found out and measured it. We'll share the successes and honest challenges of our 2026 Summer Library Program alongside a practical evaluation framework for assessing environmental empathy and stewardship identity, one you can adapt for your own informal EE setting.
This experiential workshop explores how mindfulness and play can be powerful co-creators of embodied learning in EE. This workshop seeks to demystify the idea that quiet stillness is the only available form of mindfulness. This workshop invites participants to play and to revisit their connection with more-than-human beings. This workshop weaves grounding practices and restorative sensory invitations into playful, interactive formats.
What if your students saw nature as a design lab, not just a landscape? In this interactive workshop, you'll tackle a real NC environmental problem by heading outside to find nature's solution. You'll leave the workshop with a changed perspective on problem-solving and an inquiry method you can run anywhere, with any age, next week.
Don’t Waste It! is a Criteria I educator guide that includes lessons and activities for covering municipal solid waste, landfills, recycling, composting, waterways, economy, and waste reduction. The guide was recently updated to include many new lessons and activities! Come to this session to try out two new activities and learn about available workshops and resources.
Discover what’s holding back school–community environmental education. This session reveals key barriers faced by middle grades educators, highlights inequities in access to partners, and invites you to help shape practical, justice‑centered solutions that make hands‑on, community‑rooted learning possible for every student!
The OCEAN FOR ALL Alliance (OFAA) unites 15 ocean education organizations from Ecuador, the Galápagos, Argentina, and South Africa with UNC Wilmington researchers to build a collaborative learning network. Through shared training and participatory evaluation, members implemented a common framework blending ocean literacy, service learning, water safety, and social-emotional development for youth ages 9–17. In 2025, 1,000+ student surveys showed gains across key outcomes. This session shares lessons on building global partnerships and using data to strengthen programs.
Puppets, are you ready?! Discover how puppetry can spark curiosity and help young children understand difficult science concepts like animal adaptations and the water cycle. For PreK and elementary environmental educators, this interactive session features live puppet demonstrations, ideas for implementing puppetry in your programs, and a hands-on opportunity to create simple, low-cost puppets that blend science, creativity, and play.
Through stories of Black environmental leaders, explorers, scientists, and outdoor pioneers, participants will explore ways to foster belonging in nature-based education. This interactive session introduces a “Nature Heroes Passport” framework that combines picture books, outdoor exploration, literacy, and stewardship activities to support inclusive environmental education across classrooms, camps, libraries, and community programs.
What can death, dying and climate justice teach us about conserving life on Earth? This session shares outcomes from a course at Warren Wilson College that engaged students in sustainable end-of-life planning. The class sessions focused on field experiences to explore people and places, from death doulas to casket weavers, conservation burial grounds to body farms. We will discuss diverse ways to replicate this model in other institutions, from grassroots groups to faith communities.
