Texas Children in Nature Summit and Champions Awards Luncheon

There are a variety of modalities to engage youth in natural resources education – from classroom lessons and field activities to multi-day camps.  This session will provide an overview of current efforts in the aquatic realm, and how you and/or your organization can create new programs, collaborate in current programs, and campaign for statewide youth to become involved.  Programs highlighted are Texas Wildlife Association’s Discovery Trunks and Trinity River Watershed Program, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Angler Education Program, Texas Brigades’ Youth Leadership Programs, and Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited’s Youth Trout Camp.  Programs are supported by partner organizations such as Texas Wildlife Association and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, along with hundreds of statewide volunteers.

Nature is an effective teaching tool and it is often a neglected part of a child’s formal learning experience and more and more it is even a neglected part of their up-bringing. Join the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and Partners for Education, Agriculture and Sustainability (PEAS) to learn a multitude of ways to connect children to nature on your school grounds and engage them in effective learning across the curriculum. We will share successful statewide examples of how teachers are using the natural world to make learning meaningful, relevant and fun while also helping students grow socially and emotionally and achieve high standards academically. Think TEKS. Think Outdoors. Realize Success. Realize Wonder and Awe!

We began a weekly morning Growing up Wild program at our learning center.  Structurally it was simple to plan as the well-constructed curriculum is already written. Our modification was that we required the parents to participate.  We did not use it as a half day ‘mother’s day out” program, instead we made it dual function to engage the kids and work with the adults as co-instructors.   The program is an incredible success.  We expanded the times to include an afternoon session on the same day to accommodate demand.  Now we are discussing if we’ll add an entire day to the program next year.  The key to our program is that I try to address the adults as much as the kids.  If we play a game, the parents are always part of the game as the predators or prey.  When we catch grasshoppers, they work with their child.  When we do crafts, while we keep them age appropriate, a step might require the parents.  The curriculum comes with home connections sheets, which we edit and make into at home follow-up activities and encourage them to share their completed activities next week.  The whole idea is to get a kid interested in the natural world AND to mentor the parent as their long-term instructor with a foundation of how to explore and enjoy the outdoors with their kid.  I would like to share with you  the successes and challenges of our program.  As a broader discussion we will explore the ideas of introducing families with little outdoor experience to outdoor play.  What are the barriers?  How can we address their concerns and build a value of nature in families with little prior nature connection?

San Antonio TCiN partners are innovating with their program, Project A.C.O.R.N. (Area Children Organized to Replant Natives). In this session you will learn about the program, how it is adapted at each campus, community collaborations and the technology tools students use to collect environmental data on and off campus. Project ACORN is a place-based, interdisciplinary environmental education program. It is standards based and incorporates TEKS from science, social studies, and math. In various districts it is being used at the elementary and middle schools. Project ACORN is giving the tools to students to become citizen scientists and stewards of earth’s natural resources for life which is hands-on and highly engaging for students and teachers, while also involving the greater community. Project ACORN depends on community partners and this session will also discuss how some of those partnerships were developed, have evolved and how each entity benefits.

There’s Nature in my Nature! Getting students scientifically enriched through a Nature Club at your campus. Are you Curious? Are you full of wonder? Are you happiest when you are outside? Would you like to share this with your students? Begin a Nature Club at your campus and you don't even have to be an expert to do it. In Nature Club we come to observe nature and make discoveries. We practice using our senses to make observations, respect plants and animals, and become guardians of the environment.