We truly appreciate the collective exchange of ideas each of the presenters and keynote speakers facilitate at the NAAEE Annual Research Symposium and Conference. We are committed to amplifying the diversity of experiences and perspectives of Indigenous communities. In this post, we're highlighing sessions at NAAEE2022 that center Native voices, culture, and knowledge. 

Presentation recordings will be available for Research Symposium and Conference attendees through April 15, 2023 on the event platform.

NAAEE Research Symposium

On Demand Sessions

Experiencing Nature at the Park: Discourses of Duality and Ecological Nobility
Presenter: Rebecca Johns of USFSP
Description: The educational displays at Weedon Island Preserve in Florida present a rare case in exhibits that include the lifeways of the region’s Indigenous inhabitants. We examine how the exhibits rhetorically construct the relationship between Indigenous people and nature, and the ways that environmental discourse erases the adjacent gas-burning power plant. 

In-Person Sessions

Curriculum Strategies for Mitigation of Climate Anxiety
Presenter: Emily Olsen of The Pennsylvania State University
October 11, 4:00–5:00 PM MST
Description: Feeling anxious, worried, or concerned about climate change? Your learners might be feeling this too. Learn about a framework for evaluating curriculum that has been created from strategies identified in academic literature and the results from applying the framework in a comparison study of Indigenous science and Western science-based curriculums.

“It’s Not Just Language, It’s Also Political”
Presenters: Angela D'Souza of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Shannon Audley of Smith College; Stefanie Davis of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
October 11, 4:00–5:00 PM MST
Description: Exposure and instruction of Indigenous languages could reorient children’s sense of position within the more-than-human world. Language signification and communication open space to disrupt exploitative understandings of human-nonhuman relations, foregrounds reciprocity, and helps question consumptive approaches to land, water, and the organisms that live within these.
Can settlers assist revitalize indigenous languages through school-based language programs?

Learning with Water: Centering Human-More-Than-Human Interactions for Just Social-Ecological Futures
Presenters: Marijke Hecht of The Ohio State University; Chris Jadallah of the University of California, Davis - School of Education
October 12, 3:00–3:45 PM MST
Description: We will explore how water and other more-than-human beings are actors in learning processes and how we, as environmental educators and researchers, might find productive tensions between posthumanist and Indigenous approaches to the study of human and more-than-human relations in ways that build healthier and more just social-ecological futures.

NAAEE Annual Conference

On Demand Sessions

A Shared History: Collaborating with Indigenous Communities on EE for All
Presenters: Rocco Saracina of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative; Yasmeen Hossain of Oregon State University
Description: Environmental educators seek to foster understanding and appreciation for the world around us. When engaging with Indigenous communities, such work entails a mutual journey. During this session, participants will learn about work underway in Oregon to collaborate with Indigenous leaders and educators on a curriculum that honors tribal history and knowledge in the state.

In-Person Sessions

Plenary Session: Dr. Robin Kimmerer

October 13, 11:30–12:30 PM MST

Description: Following a reading by renowned poet Alison Hawthorne Deming, we will hear from Dr. Robin Kimmerer, distinguished teaching professor of environmental biology at the State University of New York. Dr. Kimmerer's most recent book is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. She will be presenting virtually.

All plenary sessions will be live-streamed and accessible to both in-person and virtual conference participants. Plenary sessions will be recorded and available for on-demand viewing for two weeks after the presentation.

Honoring Indigenous Wisdom in Teaching Western Scientific Environmental Programs
Presenter: Vanessa Barela of Cottonwood Montessori
October 13, 4:50–5:30 PM MST
Description: In this session, the audience will learn about relationships the Sandia Mountain Natural History Center (SMNHC) has created with school districts and tribal leadership to create programs that reflect both the Western scientific perspective for environmental education and Indigenous Wisdom and beliefs.

Civic Engagement through Transformative Community Connections
Presenters: Justin Thomas Kaput of Suffield Public Schools; Angela Rivera of Prairie View Middle School; Patricia Marie Dugan-Henriksen of Groveton High School
October 14, 9:20 AM–10:00 AM MST
Description: Using the transformative power of direct, hands-on student action and civic engagement, this presentation will showcase four different approaches to participatory learning. We will highlight the role of student and community partnerships across cultures, socio-economic backgrounds, landscape compositions, and Indigenous ways of knowing.

Developing Environmental, Conservation, & Climate-Focused Field Courses for Higher Education
Presenter: Jennifer da Rosa of Johns Hopkins University
October 14, 9:20 AM–10:00 AM MST
Description: This presentation will focus on three field courses developed by Johns Hopkins University, how they overcame logistical challenges, how they endeavored to blend Indigenous voices and knowledge with science content, and how they serve as an experiential learning model for programs preparing scholar-practitioners in the environmental, climate, and conservation space.

Learn more in "6 Ways to Engage for Indigenous Peoples' Day 2022."