Educator Spotlight: Advocating for Wildlife Conservation

Charlie Pettitt empowered his English as a Second Language (ESL) students in China to advocate for an issue they cared about: wildlife conservation. When Charlie connected his lesson to a topic relevant to his students, they were more willing to speak up, practice their environmental vocabulary, and explore solutions. Charlie implemented this project with eighth-graders. Continue reading Educator Spotlight: Advocating for Wildlife Conservation

Strategy Share: The Power of Storytelling for Conservation

In environmental education, we often use stories to connect our audiences to the animals and messages we are presenting. My recent expedition to the Galápagos Islands taught me that stories can transcend generations and ignite change. Sometimes all it takes is a single word—a word that is so powerful it cuts straight to your heart. In Galápagos, that word is “lonesome.” Continue reading Strategy Share: The Power of Storytelling for Conservation

Celebrating and Advancing the Year of the Bird with Geo-Inquiry

By Alex Oberle The feathery smudge was an epitaph inscribed on a high window of an Iowa home, a sad homage to a migration that came to a sudden and final end. Was the smudge left by an ovenbird, already 700 miles of flight but one unyielding window short of the dense woods of central Ontario? Or was the smudge left by a black-and-white warbler, … Continue reading Celebrating and Advancing the Year of the Bird with Geo-Inquiry

Educator Spotlight: Designing Solutions to Conservation Challenges

Kimberly Waite guided her students through a design challenge inspired by a collaboration with National Geographic Explorer Erina Molina. Students gained background knowledge of the dugong, an endangered marine mammal, through interdisciplinary learning projects. Then, they designed a prototype of a net and boat with the goal of preventing dugongs from being caught as bycatch.   Continue reading Educator Spotlight: Designing Solutions to Conservation Challenges

Educator Spotlight: Exploring Animal Habitats in Virtual Reality

Alison Travis, this week’s Educator of the Week, helped her students visit the dens of bears, the nests of birds, and the underwater homes of ocean creatures. Students followed their own curiosity to study an animal of their own choosing and used virtual reality technology to visit those creatures at home. Alison is a kindergarten teacher at Prospect Ridge Academy in Broomfield, Colorado. How would … Continue reading Educator Spotlight: Exploring Animal Habitats in Virtual Reality