2024 Highlights

Thank You for Being Part of PEI’s Community!

As 2024 winds down, we are celebrating the ongoing transformation of education in our state and the role we get to play. Thank you for being part of our community and understanding the value of education that doesn’t just teach content but transforms students’ lives.
Highlights of our work in 2024:

• Our first Engaging Communities in Agriculture Education workshop - featuring cow-petting!
• Lower Columbia teachers showing up in force in the snow to gain tools and confidence for outdoor learning
• The Office of Native Education invited us to present our education frameworks to a statewide audience as a model for best practices in how tribal perspectives can be embedded into schools’ curricula
• Being featured in not one but two national publications: Educational Leadership and the National Science Teachers Association’s Connected Science Learning
• Five dual language/multicultural education events attended by 42 teachers and 30 community members
• Six Youth Engaged in Sustainable Systems (YESS) programs in collaboration with 45 community partners
• Getting six statewide Career and Technical Education frameworks approved by OSPI for beginning and advanced restoration ecology, forest management and education through outdoor learning
• Students sharing their climate science projects with state legislators during the 2024 Student Summit
• Serving 4,314 teachers from 280 schools in 187 school districts who in turn impact an estimated 262,075 students

See other highlights of our work in the 2024 annual report. We look forward to more collaboration in service of place-based outdoor learning in 2025.

FieldSTEM in Action

Text: Nature Journaling Workshop Sparks Curiosity and Connection

The benefits of nature journaling are well-documented. They include sharpened observation skills, stress relief, increased creativity, a near-meditative state that increases focus, and an ability to track seasonal changes and behaviors over time. 
 
As a long-time nature journalist, writer, and facilitator, Julie Tennis is well aware of those benefits. Tennis, PEI’s former Coastal Region FieldSTEM Coordinator, finds that the process activates a deeper level of learning. “My favorite thing about nature journaling is how, when you give yourself time to really observe your subject, your mind gets pulled past the superficial exercise of observing, and your curiosity gets ignited,” says Tennis. “Once this happens, it’s like a dopamine hit. You become engrossed in a cycle of asking questions, finding answers, and asking more questions.” 

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Statewide Conference

Sagelands and Science: Highlights from the 2024 WSTA/E3 Washington Conference

Community Partner Spotlight

How MCFEG’s Salmon Outside Program Inspires Collaboration

Invest in Natural Resources & Conservation Education

Join PEI’s Annual Campaign

What could educators achieve if every classroom incorporated outdoor education, community partners and culturally responsive learning? As part of PEI’s community, you share our goal of supporting teachers to make this type of education the norm for Washington State students rather than the exception. Your contribution isn’t just a donation, it’s an investment in making that future a reality.

Join PEI’s annual Campaign and invest now!

Tools & Tips for Teachers

Activities to Explore Winter Ecology

Winter ecology studies the inter-relationships between animals, insects, and plants with their habitat in the winter. In many parts of the country temperatures reach freezing (or well below) and you have lots of snow, whereas other areas receive ample rain with milder temperatures.

How do we adapt to our environment? As humans we might put on a warm jacket, gloves, and a hat before we go outside to brave the cold. Maybe you huddle around the fireplace and wear a few extra blankets. In Germany people say “there’s no bad weather, only bad clothing”—they know that winter environments still offer abundant outdoor learning opportunities! Looking for outdoor teaching tips during colder months? Molly Gillespie, Alaska’s PLT Coordinator, recently shared some ideas for teaching outdoors in the winter.

Source: Project Learning Tree

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Upcoming Events 

  With Gratitude

Thank you tDecember's donors and funders!