Hyatt Regency Wichita (HRW) and the local Kansas farmers are partnering to create a fantastic event. HRW is currently developing relationships and gathering data from the local farmers to create menus for NAAEE's 37th Annual Conference. Energy is high and everyone is buzzing with anticipation of the upcoming event in nine months.
Submitted by Nicole C. Johnson Convention Services Manager Hyatt Regency Wichita.

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The newest installment on EE and Diversity is now available online. The installment focuses on how other sectors such as environmental justice, health, and education view environmental issues. It’s divided into 6 areas, they are:

·Community Assessments
·Articles of Interest
·Vignette
·Mini-Lesson
·Success Stories
·Links

No matter what the sector, everyone agrees an assessment is an essential precursor to working in a community. What questions are asked and how the assessment is conducted reflect the priorities of the group doing the assessment. The annotated list of assessments provided in the installment will give you insight into other sectors’ views of environment.

The Articles of Interest features, “The New Environmentalists: How to Make the Green Movement Less White,” by Van Jones. The article makes a strong case for why persons of color need to be concerned and involved with environmental issues. At the same time it examines the forces that have created what until recently has been primarily an upper middle class white movement. Van Jones declares that Black is the New Green.

To view the community assessment tools, the article by Van Jones, and other sections of the installment click on the link below.

Letters of interest due: March 17, 2008
Grant funding available for non-environmental organizations and schools to conduct community-based waste reduction, toxicity reduction, and recycling projects! Community POWER (Partnerson Waste Education and Reduction) is a project of the Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board that supports innovative, community-based approaches to waste reduction. $228,000 is available, supporting projects up to $12,000 each.

Nomination Deadline: April 30, 2008
The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes seeks nominations for its 2008 awards. The Barron Prize honors young people (ages 8-18) who have made a significant positive difference to people and our planet. Each year, ten national winners each receive $2,000 to support their service work or higher education. Half of each year's winners are chosen for their work to protect the environment.

Deadline: March 1, 2008
Take A Walk® Books, publisher of children's nature books, announces this contest for children (ages 7-12). Children are asked to submit drawings of a plant, animal, or landscape of nature in winter, or to write a poem or essay (50 words or less) about winter. Winning entries from each age group (7-12) will be featured in fall 2008 publication of Take A Winter Nature Walk by award-winning nature book author Jane Kirkland.

Student delegates prepare 40-minute workshops to present to their peers at the conferences on a marine or coastal topic, relevant to their local area. Using the Kids Teaching Kids model, the 2008 Conferences will provide students with skills in environmental education, but more importantly it will build students who are optimistic, have a sense of future, are capable public speakers, and can communicate ideas in many different forms. All primary and secondary schools across the world are invited to attend this conference.

July 13-18, 2008 ~ Lincoln, Massachusetts
Application Deadline: May 1, 2008
The Walden Woods Project is offering a professional development summer seminar for high school educators and graduate students of education. This place-based, interdisciplinary workshop uses Henry David Thoreau's ethic and his experience at Walden Woods as a model, and features a daily mix of lectures, field trips, readings, discussions, and reflection time. The participants encounter speakers from different fields with expertise in the areas of natural history, writing, literary analysis, history, and the environment.

May 10, 2008
Environment for the Americas invites you to participate in International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) 2008. IMBD focuses attention on one of the most spectacular events in the life of a migratory bird -- its journey between summer and winter homes. It is celebrated throughout the Western Hemisphere by festivals, bird walks, education programs, and Bird Day. This year, the bird conservation focus is "Tundra to Tropics: Connecting Birds, Habitats, and People." Visit the Web site for information, downloadable materials, activity ideas, and more.

Application Deadline: April 30, 2008
August 2-3, 2008 ~ San Francisco, California
Population Connection's Education Program is hosting this leadership training workshop designed to prepare educators to facilitate population education workshops using Population Connection’s hands-on curricula. This institute is open to teacher educators from colleges and universities around the state, K-12 teachers, and nonformal educators who work with teachers at science museums and nature centers. Lodging and a travel reimbursement will be available for those traveling to the Bay Area from other parts of the state.
Contact: PopEd@popconnect.org or call 800-767-1956

April 25-27, 2008 ~ Winter Park, Colorado
Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE) premiere professional development event "Teaching OUTSIDE the Box," an action-packed workshop that brings together the best in environmental education for a weekend of engaging presentations, networking, resource sharing, and more... all at the spectacular YMCA of the Rockies - Snow Mountain Ranch near Winter Park.

Lesley University Sustainable Practices Summer Program: May 30 - June 19, 2008
This summer live and learn on 155 beautiful acres in rural Maine at the Ravenwood Homestead. Earn six undergraduate credits while you put into practice ecological concepts and alternative solutions you may have heard of, but have never had the chance to try.

Lesley University Sustainable Human Ecology: July 11-18, 2008
This three-credit undergraduate course is a focused investigation into practices and issues related to human sustainability based on fundamental ecological principles. Travel and camp while exploring the natural history and ecology of a bioregion. Learn about sustainable living practices by visiting people and businesses in Maine who are working toward a more eco-friendly lifestyle. This seven-day experience involves camping, eating locally, and service learning.

July 21-23, 2008 ~ Nebraska City, Nebraska
The Arbor Day Foundation and NAAEE are inviting conservation professionals, landscape architects, health care experts, and early childhood educators to the second Working Forum on Nature Education: New Tools for Connecting the World's Children with Nature. Join other delegates from a wide range of professions from six continents as they gather to share ideas on how to reconnect children around the world with nature.

Deadline: March 14, 2008
Reconnect, Rethink, Rejoice... in Gros Morne! Proposals are now being accepted for the 2008 Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication (EECOM) Conference on September 25-28, 2008, at Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland & Labrador. EECOM invites hands-on, participatory, multi-sensory sessions and workshops, indoors or out, rain or shine. Don’t miss this opportunity to contribute as we escape the everyday bustle of line-ups, traffic lights, and parking meter -- in the great outdoors!

Contact: Glenda Reid Bavis, EECOM Conference Coordinator, contact@eecom.org, (866) SEA-2-SKY

Deadline: March 1, 2008
Volume 14 of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education aims to highlight the work of practitioners engaged in inquiring into practices of environmental education. Inviting contributions from K-12 education, post-secondary and adult education, community-based organizations, and other venues and locations of environmental education practice, this issue hopes to encourage critical and empathetic inquiry into the understandings and assumptions we work with, blind spots and hoped for future directions in our work, and possible generative dialogues and collaborations.

Download submission instructions and details:

Deadline: March 1, 2008
The Fifth Environmental Writers' Conference in honor of Rachel Carson will be held at The Spruce Point Inn in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, June 10-13, 2008. The Conference will be limited to 100 participants, and the program will include presentations by featured speakers as well as scholarly and creative sessions at which selected participants will read from or present their work. Paper and presentation sessions offered by conference participants will be eligible for inclusion in the Archives at the Thoreau Library at Walden Woods.

Have you taught about air quality or incorporated air quality issues into your education programs or curriculum? Researchers from Antioch University New England and Massachusetts General Hospital are interviewing educators who have worked with air quality topics. Share your experiences and outcomes, and help contribute to this important national study of the impact of environmental education on environmental quality.

Email to participate or for more information:

The SAI (STEM Accelerator Initiative) Guide to Building Effective STEM Education Programs has just been made available by the National Alliance of State Science and Mathematics Coalitions (NASSMC). Written by Brett Pawlowski of DeHavilland Associates, the SAI Guide is a complete resource for anyone designing a new education program or conducting a strategic review of an existing program.

Classroom teachers, home school educators, naturalists – if you are committed to teaching children about the world in which they live and how they are an integral part, you will appreciate these 230 illustrated pages of hands-on activities. These activities have been created from the first-hand experience of the Ferry Beach Ecology School Staff on the coast of Maine or adapted with permission from other environmental organizations.

Produced by the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in association with the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the course consists of 13 half-hour streaming video programs, online text, professional development guide, and a Web site. Graduate credit is available from participating institutions. All online materials are free of charge and hard copies of materials are available at nominal cost.

EPA is working with 20th Century Fox in connection with their new movie, Dr. Seuss' "Horton Hears a Who" to help Americans and their kids learn about energy efficiency and ENERGY STAR. Using the lyrical rhymes and colorful illustrations that are the hallmarks of Dr. Seuss, EPA has two new brochures to remind us that - with help from Horton and ENERGY STAR - we can all do our part to fight global warming, save energy, and protect the earth. Both brochures are downloadable from the Web site.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has developed the "Teach English, Teach about the Environment" curriculum to assist teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) to teach English to adult students while introducing basic concepts about the environment and individual environmental responsibility.

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