2026 LEEF Conference Wakulla Wild

Since first sharing our Wild About Wildflowers! curriculum at the 2018 LEEF conference, the Florida Wildflower Foundation has expanded and refreshed the guide to include new activities, updated resources and deeper connections to Florida standards. Designed for formal and nonformal educators alike, the curriculum introduces students to the beauty, ecology and importance of Florida’s native wildflowers and pollinators through hands-on, inquiry-based learning. This session will showcase highlights of the updated guide, including activities that explore wildflower habitats, pollinator relationships and real-world conservation actions students can take in their communities. Presenters will share strategies for incorporating these activities into a variety of learning settings and provide resources to help participants adapt them for their own students and audiences. Join us to discover how Florida’s wildflowers can spark curiosity, deepen ecological understanding, and empower the next generation of environmental stewards.

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.

Have you ever heard of a children’s book that features an endangered snail kite as its main character? At our Everglades-focused, South Florida nature center, neither had we – and we needed one! – so we decided to create our own. Join us to learn from our center’s experience writing and illustrating *Sam the Snail Kite and the Secret of the Everglades* as a springboard for creative, place-based literacy programming and community outreach. We will share tips and cautionary tales about writing your own book, as well as techniques for using children’s picture books to engage young readers in the natural world at your site.

We will teach about the marine specimens that we supply to universities and how they can be used as teaching tools in educating children about marine science, embryology, cellular reaggregation, and different phyla of organisms.

Discover how Bonnet Springs Park’s student-centered approach to exploring outdoor spaces fosters deeper connections between children and their local heritage, culture and native landscape. Participants will receive a behind-the-scenes look at our most successful programs and resources, as well as applicable strategies to cultivate a sense of place, belonging and personal meaning while making outdoor learning more relevant and impactful.

This presentation, led by the WILD teen stewards, explores how programs like WILD promote inclusive leadership by engaging teens from diverse backgrounds in environmental education and action. Through immersion trips, community programming, and leadership engagement, WILD teens develop professional skills while deepening their connection to Florida’s natural systems, all as high school students. Presenting their stories illustrate how inclusive, youth-centered programming can transform environmental spaces into platforms for growth and leadership. This presentation highlights the importance of cultivating spaces where every teen can engage, lead, and make an impact in environmental education.

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.

Content is created each month to educate the campus community on various ways they can positively impact stormwater systems and keep our watershed free of pollutants. Presenters will explain their research, collaboration with partners, and methods of communication.

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.

Broward County has a large, diverse group of residents and a limited number of natural areas for people to enjoy. Those that exist are small and not well known by residents. The North Natural Areas Naturalist group has created programing within natural areas, regional parks and libraires to educate the public on the importance of native nature while also promoting wellness, environmental education, and building community.

*CANCELED BY PROFESSOR