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USEE Conference Report
by Dan Allison
I attended the Utah Society for Environmental Education (USEE) conference in Salt Lake City this last week [November 2002]. The format was two days of professional development and interest workshops, similar to our conference, but held in the Salt Palace convention center in downtown SLC, followed by one day of open-to-the-public workshops, forums and keynote speakers. The theme was Creating Sustainable Communities.
The staff and volunteers of USEE are wonderful people, not only good to network with but also fun to hang out with. USEE continues to provide leadership not only for Utah but for the western states by being advancing EE in Utah through guidelines for programs and an individual certification program under development. Tim Brown, executive director since Vern Fridley, has just "retired" to work on community sustainability and Eric Chandler has moved up to executive director.
The keynote speakers were David Sobel, author of Beyond Ecophobia and Mapmaking with Children, Teresa Mourad, member of the NAAEE board, Rocky Anderson, mayor of SLC, Meg Wheatley, author of Turning to One Another, and Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen. All were good and Paul Loeb was particularly inspirational, getting to the heart of why we are active in environmental education and how we can keep ourselves committed. The two forums included leaders in the SLC community, discussing the state of SLC, the state in a national and global context, and sustainability and environmental education. The 28 workshops covered many topics but were focused on environmental sustainability.
The conference had an exhibit area with displays by many local, state and national organizations and agencies. On the last afternoon the Program Advisory Council (USEE PAC) met to provide input to the organization on priorities for the future.
Though the USEE conference was much larger (100+ people) and better funded than out spring conference is likely to be, consideration of the format and content will help us plan ours.
I made a list of ideas to consider:
- the amount of hands-on content in a workshop should be listed
- workshops should be longer, with either each being 90 minutes or more, of a pattern of 60 minute and 120 minute workshops during each morning and afternoon
- we should consider out-of-state presenters; USEE covered travel costs for some of these, but most came because they wanted to
- bio and contact information for all presenters should be in the conference program and/or on the website
- a one-page summary of each workshop should be posted on the website before the conference to assist people in making workshop decisions, and afterward so that others can see what the conference offered
- we should actively recruit sponsors for the conference, for materials, reproduction, and money
- we should consider what sort of discounts or benefits to offer presenters
- we should provide more detailed information to potential presenters:
+ encourage hands-on and active workshops
+ have visual information to complement auditory content
+ have handouts, either on paper or posted online
+ the structure and content of the workshop should be clear (tell them
what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told
them); use charts or presentation slides to make content clear
+ each workshop should include either a chance to reflect on practice or
an activity that can be used immediately in teaching
+ each workshop should include content, skills (process), or professional
practice
+ the workshop proposal and conference program should include information
about the target audience of the workshop
