2026 LEEF Conference Wakulla Wild

Join us for a hands-on workshop using local spring water samples to explore connections between climate, pollution, and community health for humans and wildlife. Participants will test water quality, collect and log data, and consider how to integrate civic action into classroom practice. All attendees will receive a copy of Local Waters, Global Impact to support place-based environmental education.

This workshop requires pre-registeration. Adding the workshop to your agenda in Sched is not the same as registering for the workshop!

To register, please email [email protected] before March 20.

The AWE curriculum is developed around an anchoring phenomenon of harmful algal blooms. The short AWE unit begins with a watershed lesson, followed by a longer lesson on food webs/trophic levels/interconnectedness. The unit culminates in an investigation in which students use what they have learned to discover how nutrient loading can affect aquatic habitat quality and return to the anchoring phenomenon to figure out its causes. All lessons meet the call for ambitious science teaching practices and the national NGSS frameworks and standards and builds on required Florida NGSSS standards (Windschitl et al, 2018; NRC, 2012; NGSS 2013). The unit has been successfully pilot-tested through several iterations by many experienced teachers and revised based on their input. Participants will get to experience some of the activities and discuss the entire curriculum.

This workshop requires pre-registeration. Adding the workshop to your agenda in Sched is not the same as registering for the workshop!

To register, please email [email protected] before March 20.

This presentation will explain how the FSU Wakulla Springs Lab connects students, scientists, and media experts to produce educational materials, tours, and presentations about Wakulla Springs, an International Geological Heritage Site in Wakulla County, Florida. The presentation will also provide useful tips for enlisting college students to help build effective environmental communication materials.

Conservation Pathways is a nonprofit organization that serves high school and college students interested in pursuing careers in conservation. We work with students to develop field research, science communication, and professionalism skills. Through our science communication focus, we provide field trips, presentations, and other environmental education opportunities for communities in Florida’s Big Bend region. This presentation will introduce our model for inspiring the next generation of conservation leaders, share best management practices for internship programs, and engage participants in a discussion about creative ways to use citizen science and experiential learning as tools to foster students’ and the general public’s connection to local ecosystems. Our fellows will practice their communication skills by sharing their personal experiences as well.

Learn why native plants are so important – and how to add them to the landscape. For example, plant keystone tree species or create a butterfly garden. Learn of helpful native plant websites and small grant programs for school plantings.

Indigenous youth in the Amazon navigate rapid social and environmental changes while sustaining traditional knowledge and territorial stewardship. This study collaborates teachers, students and community members of a multiethnic Indigenous territory in the Colombian Amazon. Working alongside Indigenous teachers, researchers explore integrating traditional ecological and biocultural knowledge with K-12 science and environmental education through curriculum co-design. The collaborative process integrates a needs assessment done to understand the community views on education, conservation science, environmental issues and current practices for traditional knowledge articulation. Findings highlight the importance of community-based and traditional knowledge to root learning in the local context and facilitate nature stewardship. The researchers share about their co-design experience and the strategies developed to articulate indigenous and local knowledge with scientific and global perspectives of territories and conservation.