One way RIEEA supports our members is with professional development (PD) scholarships to support lifelong learning. Recently, we awarded scholarships to Amanda Peavey and Colleen Keenan with Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council. Here is a summary of how this scholarship helped expand their connections and environmental education knowledge:
We are so grateful for the support of RIEEA scholarships which made it possible for us to attend the 2024 NAAEE conference this November! For both of us, it was our first opportunity exploring a conference relevant to our careers. It was particularly valuable to connect with other people working in the environmental field to remember that we do not do this work in isolation, but rather that we are part of a global community working towards improving our collective future. It is easy to feel as if you are alone and have to fix the world’s problems. Despite ever-mounting obstacles in this field, being among like-minded people and sharing our work and passion for environmental education was joyful and motivational.
We left the conference with many new skills and tools which we look forward to applying to our programs and approaches at WRWC. Exchanging stories of struggles and successes with peers was both comforting and informative. We left with resources such as grant opportunity information, tips for developing multilingual programming, and tools to navigate emotionally difficult topics in climate change education. Sessions on liberatory pedagogy and bridging political divides helped situate the role of environmental education in the current political moment.
While environmental work can be seen as increasingly divisive, these sessions gave a roadmap for using radical imagination to push for social change and finding common ground with diverse audiences. Meanwhile, the throughline of community connection and care was a present reminder of how we can support each other throughout this process. We heard many perspectives of how to engage high school students by allowing them to have agency and connect meaningfully with environmental professionals in their own communities. We will surely return to this guidance as we strive to expand and improve our student-lead climate curriculum throughout the Woonasquatucket Watershed. Our conference experiences have already sparked many conversations and discussions which will fuel the future growth of our educational programs, so stay tuned!