2020 Conference

Thank you to all who attended the 2020 MEES Conference!

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Standards to Action: Panel Discussion

The conference will kick off with an exciting panel discussion addressing climate change standards and how to move them into action. The panel discussion will feature professionals from across the environmental education sector discussing Climate Change, Civic Engagement, and Frameworks within Environmental Education.

Panelists will challenge you to think of yourself not as an educator but as an activator!

Panelists Include:

  • Andrew Ahern, TerraCorps Service Member; Community Engagement Coordinator, Mass Audubon Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center & Wildlife Sanctuary
  • Michele Paul, Director of Environmental Stewardship, City of New Bedford
  • Nicole Scola, Science and Technology/Engineering Content Lead, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE)
  • Will Snyder, Extension Educator, University of Massachusetts Amherst; Massachusetts Envirothon Steering Committee Member
  • Alexandra Vecchio, Climate Change Program Director, Mass Audubon

Panel Moderator:

  • Alissa Murfitt, Taunton Public Schools

Mass Audubon’s Conservation Teacher of the Year Award

Join MEES in celebrating Mass Audubon’s Conservation Teacher of the Year Award recipients! Mass Audubon will present the 2019 Teacher of the Year Award recipients during lunch at the conference.

Rebecca Goodlett of Fitchburg’s South Street Elementary School and Erin Sarpard, formerly of New Covenant School in Arlington, were named recipients of Mass Audubon’s Conservation Teacher of the Year Award for 2019, sponsored by the New England Farm and Garden Association.

Goodlett, now a fourth-grade teacher at South Street Elementary, began bringing all her pupils on seasonal nature walks at a local Fitchburg park when she taught first grade. The walks have now become a school tradition and continue even after Rebecca moved to teaching fourth graders.

In the Fitchburg Public School’s afterschool program, Goodlett has led outdoor seminars on bird biology and habitats and initiated a “Girls on the Run” group to develop science confidence for young female students while they run and move in local outdoor spaces. Rebecca also has worked with a teacher-naturalist from Mass Audubon’s Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary in Princeton to bring outdoor science learning to students in grades 2-4 at Fitchburg Public Schools’ summer school.

Sarpard, who taught first- and second-graders at New Covenant until recently, established a field-trip partnership with Mass Audubon’s Habitat Education Center in nearby Belmont. Over multiple visits to the wildlife sanctuary’s Turtle Pond and other habitats, she introduced her students to animals and plants and their natural cycles, and the pupils have expanded on those discoveries in their writing and art lessons.

As important, if not more so, these primary-grade children have developed a culture of nurture and empathy under Sarpard’s tutelage.

For more information on Mass Audubon’s Conservation Teacher of the Year Award please click here.

Conference Exhibitors

All conference exhibit tables have been filled.

Exhibitors at the MEES Conference gain access to 200 Massachusetts environmental educational professionals all eager to learn something new and meet someone new. Contact our Exhibitor Coordinator to find out more!

View the Conference Brochure!

Become a Scholarship Supporter

Each year MEES provides 40 reduced-rate conference registrations to help provide access to the conference for all those excited and inspired by environmental education. This program has been incredibly successful over the years and the financial contributions of our Scholarship Supporters is essential to the its continuation. Funds donated to MEES under the Scholarship Supporter program are tax deductible and are used exclusively in support of our scholarship program.

To become a Scholarship Supporter visit the MEES Donation webpage. Email questions to Ann Gisinger, MEES Board President.

Thank you to our Scholarship Supporters!

MEES is incredibly grateful to our Scholarship Supporters for contributing a financial sponsorship to MEES in support of our Conference Scholarship Program. The financial contributions of our Scholarship Supporters is essential to the continuation of the program. A heartfelt thank you goes out to the following individuals and organizations supporting the MEES Conference Scholarship Program in 2020:

Individual Donors

  • Colleen Abrams
  • Liz Ellsworth
  • Ann Gisinger
  • Ileen Gladstone
  • Ali Horowitz
  • David Peter
  • Mason Sandell
  • Lucy Servidio

Organizations

 

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