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Unpack Your Strategic Plan! How to Maximize Your Nature Center with Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a key tool for nature centers to envision a future that meets the needs of an organization and its community. Unpack what goes into making action-packed and effective strategic plans that meet your nature center's vision. We will use BLM Campbell Creek Science Center as a case study on how strategic planning creates dynamic change in an organization. Practice developing your own simple plan — and come away with something tangible to take home and put into action! 

Equitable Compensation and Hiring Practices in EE

This session will provide an overview of the recommendations described in the new eeGuidance for Equitable Pay and Hiring document related to equitable compensation, position design, recruitment, and hiring processes. We will also discuss recommendations and resources for employers to use this document highlighting the Maine Environmental Education Association's recent work on equitable compensation as a case study. The session will be interactive with time for participants to connect in small groups to discuss their own reflections on this complex issue, share challenges and solutions. During this presentation, participants will: 

• gain familiarity with the eeGuidance for Equitable Pay and Hiring;
• learn the minimum standards outlined in that document for equitable pay and benefits, position design, recruitment, and hiring processes and practices; and 
• understand at least two ways you can take action towards advancing equity through shifting hiring practices and compensation at your nature center.

Living Your Mission: Lessons Learned from Sustainable Building Projects

Sustainable buildings can be an important reflection of a nature center’s mission, but they’re by no means easy to accomplish. This workshop will share details and lessons learned from two sustainable building projects, one at Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland, Minn., and another at Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park, Minn.

Last year Wolf Ridge’s Margaret A. Cargill Lodge earned full Living Building Challenge status, a premiere certification for sustainable buildings — the organization behind it, the International Future Living Institute (IFLI), says that it is “the world’s most rigorous proven performance standard for buildings.” Even more impressive, Wolf Ridge’s building is the first renovation project to earn the certification, as well as the northernmost building to do so.

Westwood Hills Nature Center recently achieved Zero Energy Certification through the IFLI. Part of a St. Louis Park’s Parks & Recreation Department, the Westwood Hills Interpretive Center Building is a model for the city’s Climate Action Plan, which aims for a net-zero carbon footprint by 2040. 

Learn about both of these projects and what it took to accomplish each, including capital planning, design and operations, and community engagement.

Inspiring Climate Change Action for the Next Generation

The Howard County Conservancy recently launched two climate change education programs for students in grades 6-12, bringing current climate science, realistic solutions, and action projects to thousands of students within Howard County Public Schools (HCPSS). Funded by a NOAA B-WET grant, the goal of Climate kNOWledge is to implement a district-wide climate change curriculum with meaningful watershed educational experiences that engages every sixth grade HCPSS student and teacher in robust hands-on climate science. Climate kNOWledge pairs climate change and climate justice education, schoolyard data collection, and a solutions-based field experience with intensive teacher professional development to support student action projects in their school communities. The Youth Climate Institute is a youth-led, three year certification program for high school students. By participating in the program, students will learn the fundamentals of climate science, join an action team focused on positive solutions in their communities, and become better science communicators. During a student’s senior year, they can earn an honors designation for their certification by working closely with a community partner on a climate change capstone project that addresses a specific community need. The Howard County Conservancy, a local, non-profit environmental education center, headquartered at the 300 year old, 232-acre Mt. Pleasant farmstead in Howard County, Md. 

A Self-Guided Approach to Direct Nature Engagement

The BEETLES Project, begun in 2011, develops research-based professional learning materials, model student activities, and additional resources that support organizational capacity building among outdoor science and environmental education organizations nationwide. BEETLES activities are developed around five primary design principles, not the least of which is engaging directly with nature, and have traditionally relied on learners being guided through experiences by a skilled instructor, making them highly effective tools in facilitated spaces.

In this workshop you will explore newly developed self-guided BEETLES activities, which were designed to encourage direct engagement with nature in outdoor centers, botanical gardens, or any unmediated nature space. Each activity engages students with commonly found parts of nature (e.g. leaves, lichen, using smartphones for exploration) to be widely applicable and highlight nature as something learners can begin developing a deep relationship with anywhere. Join this session to get hands-on experience with eight model activities and discuss how you might apply these learner-driven approaches to your own non-facilitated nature spaces.

Facility Planning: A Case Study of Lakeshore Nature Preserve

The Lakeshore Nature Preserve is a 300-acre natural area situated along Lake Mendota on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Preserve shelters diverse and biologically significant plant and animal communities essential for teaching, research, and outreach. As the ancestral home of the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Preserve also safeguards historically significant cultural landscapes. Despite its importance to the campus and larger community the Preserve has lacked a critically important on-site facility to support ongoing staff land management, campus educational activities, and public outreach. This workshop will explore the complex challenges involved in planning for a highly sustainable new facility.

Risk Management for Outdoor Programs

This workshop aims to help nature center administrators take advantage of the best contemporary thinking on incident prevention and mitigation to help ensure their outdoor programs exhibit excellence in risk management. We’ll take a look at theoretical models of incident causation developed by researchers in the aviation and healthcare industries, and explore how they can be applied to nature centers, environmental learning centers, and outdoor schools. We’ll explore how complex systems theory and resilience engineering can be used to develop and implement high-quality risk management plans for outdoor programs. Participants will leave the workshop with practical ideas they can use right away to improve safety at their organization. The workshop is most applicable to programs that offer activities in remote outdoor settings, or provide adventure experiences (like whitewater or backpacking trips).

Exhibits on Any Budget

Learn three different ways to approach exhibits in your nature center. First discover how to develop, design, and fabricate interactive exhibits in-house that won't break the budget. Then see how we involved the community in art shows and traveling exhibits therefore diversifying our audience. Lastly see how a nature center looking for a large scale remodel, bid out for a conceptual design plan with professional design companies. This plan also includes a cohesive interpretive theme to use going forward during construction and fabrication. Presentation includes examples of each approach from Plum Creek Nature Center and Hidden Oaks Nature Center.

Roots & Fruits: How Campaigns Can Ground and Grow Your Organization

This workshop will teach you how to design, implement and execute a campaign using real cases, decisions, and examples. We’ll review best practices and emerging issues in campaign preparation, communications, and the ability to adjust in this changing environment. You will walk away understanding the how and way of fundamentals and enhanced steps to manage and develop a comprehensive campaign.

• Understand how to develop strategies for resourcing a campaign and building a case for support.
• Learn the fundamentals of building a comprehensive/capital campaign.
• Discuss how feedback in a feasibility study impacts the eventual campaign, how campaign committees are structured (and the benefits and challenges of working with volunteers), and the breakdown of responsibilities play out in partnering with a consultant.
• Be able to adapt to the unexpected and develop strategies to keep your campaign on track.
• Learn how to employ campaign analytics including goal setting, tracking progress to goal, and projections.
• Create mini campaigns to keep campaign momentum and meet institutional goals during unprecedented times.
• Closing a successful campaign- we’ll discuss how the public phase differs from the quiet phase, how to activate a campaign committee and the Board, what to do when a campaign lulls, and how to keep momentum going as the campaign moves into the later years.

Full Spectrum Advocacy

The Cibolo Center for Conservation was thrust into the civic realm by a large development on its border. Seeing the need to pre-empt the negative impacts of future development, the Cibolo became highly engaged in regional policy and planning.

Since 2017, the Cibolo has achieved a number of policy and planning outcomes, including: Co-created the most environmentally protective Unified Development Code in Texas; Passage of a $20 Million County Greenspaces Bond; Influenced the county’s transportation and city thoroughfare plan; Participated in a comprehensive water conservation strategy; Helped to stop a major highway project; and facilitated numerous additional successes.

We view civic engagement as fundamental to fulfilling our organization’s mission and often say that “If we’re not at the table, nature is on the menu.” We believe that other Nature Centers can step up and change their community’s policies and planning and that this influence will ripple beyond our immediate spheres of influence to contribute to positive changes in state and federal policy.

During this workshop, we will explore our philosophy, tactics, and strategy for achieving outcomes through what we call “Full Spectrum Advocacy.” You will learn the secrets to our success and cultivate the can-do attitude that is fundamental to all great achievements. If we can do it, you can do it, so come get informed and energized!

Nature is For Everyone: Culturally Responsive Nature Centers

Culturally relevant and culturally responsive teaching are well-researched and considered to be best practices for classrooms to engage with all students. These teaching practices connect student learning to their cultures, support the belief that everyone has important knowledge and understandings of the world to share, and ensure the sense of belonging. But how do we bring these practices to our nonformal education sites? How do we engage with culturally responsive teaching within nature centers and other informal education settings? We’ll talk about how and why to implement culturally responsive practice into our programs and centers, explore resources and models, and consider ways to celebrate the diverse knowledge our students, visitors, and program audiences bring with them.

Succeeding at Succession Planning

What is succession planning and why is it important for your organization? Let’s focus on the “success” in succession planning and how it can set your organization up for  long-term sustainability. Whether you have done a succession plan before or not, come join us to delve into the different types of succession plans, common misconceptions, when is the right time to do one, how much it costs, how long it takes, how to convince your Board to do it, and resources to help get you started. Bring your experience and your questions and let’s help each other plan for success.

Finding Your Niche in the AI Ecosystem

Artifical intelligence (AI) tools have become increasingly available to our organizations, with possibly major implications for operations, fundraising, marketing, and more. Let's open up a dialogue about what AI looks like in the nature center sphere. Help or hindrance? Authentic or misleading?

Indigenous, Native, Natural: What Do These Words Mean to a Living Culture?

How do we honor the past and the living culture of the Indigenous peoples that lived and may still live on or near the land a park or historic organization occupies, beyond a land acknowledgment? We will explore modern questions regarding Indigenous life past, present, and future, in historic spaces.

Marketing Strategies and Tools for Success

In order to market what your organization is doing, you seemingly need to apply an array of skills: copywriting, photography, videography, graphic design, website editing, public relations, and a distinct knowledge of every social media platform in existence. How do we balance it all?

In this Facilitated Discussion we’ll talk about marketing strategies for nature centers and outdoor schools, including how to prioritize time, how small teams (or teams of one) can get the most out of their work, and the best tools and resources to use. Let’s discuss what’s working for you, what isn’t, and all the marketing topics in between.

Food Justice

We talk about sustainable farming, seed saving and urban gardening, but are we missing an opportunity to truly fight for food justice? How do we build authentic relationships with Black-led organizations and Indigenous people to reframe the narratives on key issues such as land access, food sovereignty and the “alternative food movement.” Let’s have a conversation and share ideas on how our nature centers and organizations can take an active, supportive, intentional role in expanding food access and championing food education in our communities.

Sustainable Businesses Practices for Education Departments

Join this facilitated discussion on education programming at nature centers that supports how we operate at the confluence of mission work and innovative business models. We will discuss how to know when change is needed, how to implement change with low risks and high rewards, and how to evaluate success for what our future community needs. Through this rich dialogue, we will focus on programming with fidelity, sustainability, and mission alignment.

Putting Staff First: Personnel Policy Overhaul

There are many ways to honor the work of staff, including providing great benefits, supporting diversity and families, and building positive work culture. The Nature Museum in Grafton, Vt., and North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vt., each recently led comprehensive personnel policy overhauls and benefit reviews that navigated tricky issues such as legal requirements, appropriate language, and cost. We sought to improve benefits, provide clarity and structure, and support both our staff and our organizations.

In this facilitated discussion, we’ll explain how we did this and where we landed on topics such as paid leave, sick time, gendered language, and program waivers. We’ll also leave space for questions and discussion about your struggles and triumphs with personnel policies and employee benefits.

Public Funds, Partnerships, and Capital Campaigns: Make Your Money Work for You!

Is your nature center part of a public/private partnership? Need some capital improvements? Have you successfully launched a capital campaign for your nature center on public property? Join the discussion about how to leverage public funds to kick-start or contribute to your capital campaign! Learn and discuss how working with public partners such as your city councilperson or county commissioner can lead to supporting capital improvements. Let’s discuss what it takes to get to the next step- taking those public funds and multiplying them with private funding.

Moving Beyond Pipelines: Cultivating Ecosystems to Develop Future Environmentalists

There is a need to diversify nature center staffing and attract a broader demographic to the environmental profession. Funding, especially at the federal level, largely addresses this problem by building pipelines for underrepresented groups. But is a pipeline the best way to support/describe this work? Is there a more organic way to develop future environmentalists, one that considers multiple factors that are critical to students’ success? The term “ecosystem” describes a system of interdependence between living things and the habitat they occupy. Can we identify interdependent factors in students’ lives and support them too, in addition to their academics? This support might include: engaging parents; offering non-English translations; paying interns; providing transportation.

Mitigating Controversy

Community reactions to program implementation — and DEI programs in particular — can be hard to predict, and can result in unprecedented, even violent, backlash. Come share your implementation stories and discuss steps to facilitate engagement and new ways of thinking within our communities.