This summer, 112 students participated in eight Youth Engaged in Sustainable Systems (YESS) programs across Washington State. Each program was a partnership between PEI, school districts, and at least 87 local community partners. This year, participation increased 86% from 2024, when PEI served 60 students across six programs.
In some ways, Western Washington University’s (WWU) CREST program more closely resembles a summer camp or even what one teacher jokingly referred to as a ‘teaching spa’ than a typical professional development session. “The whole second week is about treating teachers as experts, and we like to say we’re
Back in 2019, Cheryl Fambles explained why it made sense for Pacific Mountain Workforce Development Council (PacMtn) to support and fund PEI. “They are an important intermediary,” she said. “PEI is a translator and an advocate in that space between industry and employer and the schools. They have
Stephanie Holubowsky is a fan of salmon dinners, but until recently, she hadn’t considered where it came from or the historic and cultural issues around it. “I never gave much thought to how it ended up on my plate and the struggles people went through with being able
Kim Stenbak’s 4th-graders had a burning question, one they brought up at regular intervals during class at Union Ridge Elementary School. “Has the principal said yes yet?” The class had collected data from both teachers and students about the impacts of outdoor learning, in an attempt to convince
“Out of my 23 years of teaching, this professional development is in my top two – or ties for first in terms of how much I learned and [the] misconceptions [that] changed, changing my perspective on logging in this case. I’m so happy to have the rest of
The first day of summer vacation may seem like a terrible time to hold a professional development workshop. Most teachers will have already started summer in their minds, even if their bodies are still present. But the 24 teachers from 11 Eastern Washington school districts who gathered for
Some environmental impacts on Washington’s Tribes are more obvious than others. The Quinault Nation, for example, is in the process of moving an entire village uphill due to sea level rise. But other issues can be harder to spot, even though they are just as threatening to sovereign
For the Quinault Nation, the impacts of climate change are personal. The tribe recently completed phase one of a multi-year project to move their entire lower village up the hill in response to sea level rise. On June 16 and 17, regional teachers toured that project and learned
It’s one thing to theorize about bees and other pollinators or read about them in the abstract. It’s another to walk out into a schoolyard and look for plants that could provide pollen. The latter approach to learning was in full effect at a May workshop introducing the
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