Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Everyone Can Grow! Winter Programming Using An Indoor Horticulture Environmental Education Program To Benefit Military Veterans, Rachel Elam

WWU Graduate School Collection

Working with plants has numerous physical, mental health and well-being benefits for people, and military veteran farming programs have been started to provide these benefits. However, these programs lack activities outside of the Washington State growing season which is approximately May to October. Since these programs are largely meant as ways for veterans to engage in community and peer support, the gap over winter is unacceptable for the purposes of supporting mental health. This project produced a winter environmental education curriculum for military vets, titled Everyone can Grow! (ECG!), and is designed to provide peer support and psychological …

A Needs Assessment Of The Perceptions And Opportunities To Enhance Nature Exploration At Publicly Funded Preschools, Naomi Liebhold

WWU Graduate School Collection

Extensive research supports the benefits of nature exploration in children’s lives. Research also suggests, however, that low-income families and other historically marginalized groups experience multiple barriers to accessing green spaces. In an attempt to counteract this inequality, a needs assessment was performed to understand the challenges and barriers public preschool providers face in regularly leading their children in nature exploration. The target audience of this evaluation was Head Start and Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program [ECEAP] teachers and parents. Along with measuring the challenges and barriers at these centers in regard to nature exploration, this evaluation assessed the resources …

Not Just Nature, Sarah Kellogg

WWU Graduate School Collection

This field project, entitled Not Just Nature, consists of three parts: the first being a curriculum by the same name. This curriculum, an arts-based workshop series, has been/is being developed to open conversations to interrogate the colonial and white supremacist concepts of nature that have been created in the United States through a variety of means.

The second part of this project is using self as a site of research/critical autoethnography. No field is apolitical, and the creator/researcher will always bring pieces of themselves and their identities to whatever processes they participate in. Thus, throughout my graduate experience I have …