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Perceptions In (Outdoor) Education: Using Openness And Vulnerability As Learning Tools, Kevin E. Sutton Jun 2017

Perceptions In (Outdoor) Education: Using Openness And Vulnerability As Learning Tools, Kevin E. Sutton

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

In this presentation Kevin discusses the “masks” that we all wear and how outdoor education can be a tool to help empower people to take control of the masks they wear each day. Examples of masks include proficiency, extraversion and stubbornness.


Dividing By Too: Extremophilia And Environmental Education, Petra D. Lebaron-Botts Jun 2017

Dividing By Too: Extremophilia And Environmental Education, Petra D. Lebaron-Botts

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Words do not stand alone. As humans we make meaning of language and have the choice to wield it as a tool of inclusivity and justice, or as a tool of division and subjugation. To that end, language should be used with thought and intention. This paper examines the word “too” and its place in interpersonal and intrapersonal power struggles. “Too” has an inherently anthropocentric bias and serves to separate us from each other and from the natural world. Environmental education also suffers from “too,” but there exists the potential for the field to be bolstered by it instead. If …


Embodied Inner-Knowing, Chelsea E. Ernst Jun 2017

Embodied Inner-Knowing, Chelsea E. Ernst

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Our bodies are ecosystems that are just as profound as the complex communities and systems of the forests that surround us here in the Pacific Northwest. Awareness of our bodies as systems and as intuitive beings can facilitate our positive actions towards each other and the environment. Tonight I will provide space for us to explore this awareness through mindfulness practice, storytelling with words, and storytelling with movement. I hope that these practices will lead to more mindfulness of the way we are in the world and of the ways that the systems of somatics, the brain-gut connection, storytelling, ecosystems, …


Awakening To Place, Lauren Ridder Jun 2017

Awakening To Place, Lauren Ridder

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

I had such a rich, transformative experience in the North Cascades because I was awakening to the teachers all around me and intentionally tuning into the lessons that they had to give. I would like to share my process of awakening with you and provide a space for reflection on your other-than-human teachers. I encourage you to carry those lessons with you and take note of how your teachers influence your life on multiple scales. Awakening to my other-than-human teachers enriched my life. Reminders to be flexible, yet strong and to laugh and be silly shifted my perspective on the …


All My Relations: The Journey Of Discovering My Ecological Identity, Mike Rosekrans Jun 2017

All My Relations: The Journey Of Discovering My Ecological Identity, Mike Rosekrans

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Everyone has a story to tell; a story about their journey, about their struggles, about discovering themselves, and about how they became who they are as a person. A person’s journey may help explain how one forms their identity and perceives themselves. That journey may include: values, beliefs, attitudes, hobbies, spiritual paths, or profound inspirations that have helped shape and giving meaning to a person’s life. This script is such a story. It is a story about how I became a more confident, complete person dedicated to protecting and preserving the natural world. This occurred while seeking inspiration and solace …


All It Contains: Biblical Perspectives On Environmental Care, Gavin Willis Jun 2017

All It Contains: Biblical Perspectives On Environmental Care, Gavin Willis

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

TBD


Root.Ed: A Story That Reconnects, Liz Blackman Jun 2017

Root.Ed: A Story That Reconnects, Liz Blackman

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This paper seeks to examine grief and despair as entry points toward compassion and environmental renewal. When sharing our own stories of grief and healing we access our deep roots as communities of interconnected Beings and find our way to Active Hope. Ecological grief plays a critical role in the environmental destruction of our time and by interrogating our own death denial and despair paradigms through communal story- sharing we can move away from apathy and toward more impactful environmental education. Below I share my own Root.ED journey from interconnection through grief to healing and compassionate renewal and how the …


Finding Wonder In The Everyday, Annabel Connelly Mar 2016

Finding Wonder In The Everyday, Annabel Connelly

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Good morning and welcome to my capstone presentation, Finding Wonder in the Everyday. Humans have lived, traveled through, and told stories here in the North Cascades for thousands of years, particularly those in the Sauk and Suiattle tribes. Today I hope to honor that tradition as I tell a few stories while exploring the possibilities inherent in storytelling.


The Red Pill: Environmental Education Wakes Up To The Real World, Elissa Kobrin Mar 2016

The Red Pill: Environmental Education Wakes Up To The Real World, Elissa Kobrin

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Growing up, I loved going to camp. My parents who are here today will attest to the fact that going to Camp Wilani was the center of universe around which I revolved. We were always one of the very first cars in line before they opened the gate. I couldnʼt wait to snag my bunk, and meet my new counselor and cabin mates. Camp Wilani had a particular smell: Oregon Coastal Mountain forest, the riparian foliage next to the lagoon, old wooden cabins and bunks. I loved that place, and my summers there fostered my deep love of nature and …


Interconnectedness: The Roots Of Inspiration, Katie Komorowski Mar 2016

Interconnectedness: The Roots Of Inspiration, Katie Komorowski

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

This paper explores the question of: Why is nature so inspiring? Ultimately the answer is that we are connected to and a part of a greater system. It is through nurturing this relationship with the Earth that we can be inspired. Our western culture has created a dichotomy between human and nature. As problematic as this is, our humanity is reflected back at us and can be a source of inspiration. Our desire to explore the unknown comes from our humanity. When faced with nature we can be taken into a state of awe where preconceived mental frameworks need to …


Mudpies & Dragonflies: The Value Of Unstructured Play In Environmental Education, Tyler Chisholm Mar 2016

Mudpies & Dragonflies: The Value Of Unstructured Play In Environmental Education, Tyler Chisholm

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Hello everyone and thank you for coming to the very first open house of Mudpies & Dragonflies Nature Preschool where our kids spend everyday, rain or shine, wind or snow outside exploring the natural world! I’m Tyler Chisholm, the director and lead teacher here at Mudpies. I, for one, am incredibly excited to be here today because opening this school has been a dream of mine since graduate school at Western Washington University where I received my Master’s of Education in Environmental Education. But before we get started with what a nature preschool is and why I think this type …


Doing. Myself. Justice., Kaci Darsow Mar 2016

Doing. Myself. Justice., Kaci Darsow

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

The titles for these capstones were due five weeks ago. Five weeks ago I had no idea what this presentation would look like. I still don’t know. I had, and have, so many ideas, so many things I want to share with you. But these three words kept showing up in my journal, over and over. Just like this: Doing. Myself. Justice. When Nick asked for my title, all I could do was write this on the chalkboard. I didn’t know what it meant. I still don’t know what it means. But so far I’ve spent 26 years finding out, …


Rare Or Well Done? A Waitress Wonders How To Best Serve Environmental Education, Katherine Renz Mar 2016

Rare Or Well Done? A Waitress Wonders How To Best Serve Environmental Education, Katherine Renz

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Environmental education (EE) promises to facilitate the transformation of attitudes and behavior on a broad scale. Yet the field has not fulfilled its potential. This article takes an auto-ethnographical approach in considering the reluctance of environmental educators to discuss environmental problems. How is the discipline weakened by equating critical thinking and ecologically motivated despair with a negative attitude rather than honestly acknowledging the grief and promoting resiliency and empowerment instead? Through the lens of a professional waitress, this article argues that the service industry offers a privileged though overlooked venue for EE. Rather than framing EE as an isolated event …


A Francophile In The North Cascades, Sarah Stephens Mar 2016

A Francophile In The North Cascades, Sarah Stephens

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

The fields of cultural studies and environmental studies are often disconnected. Even the tagline, ‘act locally, think globally’ tends to refer to realizing how local ecological processes are related to global processes (Thomashow, 2002). Culture is left out of this interpretation of the phrase. I believe that in order to address global environmental issues cultural awareness needs to be part of the solution. My experience with learning French language and culture has convinced me that second language acquisition can be an effective way to bring cultural studies into the world of environmental studies.


What Came First, The Love Or The Learning?, Samantha J. Hale Mar 2016

What Came First, The Love Or The Learning?, Samantha J. Hale

Summit to Salish Sea: Inquiries and Essays

Today I’ll be talking about identity and a sense of home. Before I start, let me briefly tell you a bit about myself. I am 1⁄4 Irish, 1⁄4 Italian, 1⁄4 German and 1⁄4 English. I don’t know where my Irish, German or English relatives originated, but my Italian side of the family comes from Bergamo, Italy; I still have family there to this day. I was born in Weymouth Massachusetts, a suburb just south of Boston. I was raised and educated in Weymouth until high school, when I opted to go to a private school a few towns over. At …