Environmental educators from throughout North America had a new opportunity to explore participation in Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) programs when WHC’s education department attended the North American Association of Environmental Education conference October 13-14. Thanks to a sponsorship from Waste Management, WHC had a space on an exhibit floor that was open to the conference’s approximately 1,000 attendees, who represented schools, nature centers, other nonprofit organizations, and government agencies.
Photo (c) WHC
WHC educators helped grade school teachers to identify Corporate Lands for LearningSM (CLL) and Wildlife at WorkSM programs in their neighborhoods and discussed student research opportunities with college-level educators. Representatives of private industry stopped by the exhibit to learn how they could help both students and wildlife in their communities by starting their own CLL and Wildlife at Work programs.
WHC also hosted a round table session to introduce formal and informal educators to the Nature’s Partners pollinator curriculum. This free online resource from the Pollinator Partnership (a nonprofit organization that partners closely with WHC) features inquiry-based lessons that help students to develop science process skills while enhancing pollinator habitat in their communities. WHC also presented the Pollinator Partnership’s new Bee Smart Garden Kit, a comprehensive resource for creating an educational pollinator garden. This kit will be featured again at WHC’s annual symposium in November.
The Robert Bateman Get to Know Program, another close partner of WHC, was also featured at the conference. Learn more about this initiative, which inspires youth to discover the natural world through art and other mediums, at a workshop at WHC’s annual symposium.
