Teaching Environmental Literacy
for PreK-12 Teachers and Non-Formal Educators
CANCELED: Due to lack of registrations, this event has been canceled.
Are you looking for an engaging way to meet education standards and bring STEM into your classroom? Then you need to attend Teaching Environmental Literacy! This mini-conference will provide educators with strategies, projects, and lessons to integrate environmental literacy and stewardship, the Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core, and STEM into the classroom.
Environmental literacy - The capacity to perceive and interpret the relative health of environmental systems and take appropriate action to maintain, restore, or improve the health of those systems. Environmental literacy draws upon six major areas: environmental sensitivity, knowledge, skills, attitudes and values, personal investment and responsibility, and active involvement.
Teaching Environmental Literacy
Sessions include:
What’s In Your Water? – Explore the movement of water through the atmosphere, geosphere and biosphere. In this session you will recognize water distribution and scarcity, observe how a watershed works through modeling, compare and contrast the amount of water flowing through a river and its watershed based on weather and seasonal change, and utilize topographical maps to recognize how landforms impact water quality. Target audience: Grades 6 – 8. Instructor: Wendy Parrett, Education Consultant, Missouri Department of Conservation.
Outdoor Learning Environments – Get your students outdoors, it’s an amazing learning space. In this session you will learn how to use the outdoor environment to engage multiple learning styles that may otherwise not be engaged in a traditional classroom setting, explore the possibilities that exist outdoors for activities that would be disruptive if done indoors, and design a site for multiple learning uses in multiple subject areas beyond science class. Target audience: PreK - 12. Instructors: Michelle Chavey, Greg Porter, and Ryan Walters, Architects, Hollis and Miller.
The High Price of Settling – Water runoff affects everything – the environment, wildlife, and people. Through a hands-on, interactive model that is easy to replicate in your classroom, you will investigate water quality issues due to excessive precipitation, weathering and erosion of different land surfaces and topography, engineer and test possible solutions to minimize environmental impacts from runoff, explore point source and non-point source pollution, and investigate legal water issues. Target audience: Grades 3 – 12. Instructors: Alaine Hudlin, KC District Education Coordinator, Kansas Dept. of Wildlife and Parks; Cheri Miller, District Manager, Wyandotte County Conservation District; Diane Maddox, 6th Grade Science Teacher, Leawood Middle School.
Can I Grow Food? – Growing food is one of the best ways to teach and connect students to their food and the environment. This session will integrate ecology, science, nutrition and writing to answer these questions: What is the purpose of each part of a plant? How is a plant affected by its habitat? What parts of plants are good for us to eat? Participants will create plans to meet classroom objectives. Target audience: PreK – 5. Instructors: Lois Hutchins, Beanstalk Children's Coordinator, Kansas City Community Gardens; Claire Sinovic, Garden and Nutrition Educator, Kansas City Community Gardens.
Saturday, Jan 30, 2016, 08:00 AM
Union Station, 30 W Pershing Rd, Kansas City, MO 64108, United States
Schedule
- 8:00 – 8:30 am - Registration & continental breakfast
- 8:30 – 9:00 am - Opening Session: Why Write In Science?
- 9:05 – 10:35 am - Session 1, choose between:
- Outdoor Learning Environments
- What's In Your Water?
- 10:40 am – 12:10 pm - Session 2, choose between:
- Can I Grow Food?
- The High Price of Settling
- 12:15 – 12:45 pm - Closing Session: Writing Wrap Up
Who we are
This mini-conference is a partnership among the Kansas City Environmental Education Network, Science Pioneers and the Greater Kansas City Writing Project.
Email: admin@sciencepioneers.org
Website: https://www.sciencepioneers.org/
Location: 30 W Pershing Rd, Kansas City, MO 64108, United States
Phone: 816-460-2261
Registration Information
Registration for the mini-conference is $50.00 per person, or $85.00 for two if you sign up together. To receive this group discount, contact Shea O’Riley at 816-460-2261. Otherwise, you can register online.
If you would like graduate credit and/or CEUs, contact Patty Dailey at 816-460-2262.
Parking is available in the West Parking Garage at Union Station. Science Pioneers has $3 parking vouchers for sale ($2 savings).