About the 2022 Conference

General Schedule             Conference Theme             Keynote Speaker

Conference Schedule

This year’s conference will be held September 9 to Saturday September 10, 2022. Plan ahead now for pre-conference workshops, field trips, and more on Thursday, September 8.  View the detailed conference schedule.

Thursday, September 8	Friday, September 9	Saturday, September 10
Pre-Conference Events: Workshops and Field Trips Full and half day options!	Morning Concurrent Sessions Lunch Plenary Session Afternoon Concurrent Sessions Reception Dinner Keynote Presentation	Morning Concurrent Sessions Lunch Afternoon Concurrent Sessions

EENC offers a variety of registration types. Please view Registration Information for what is included each option.

Conference Theme

The theme for the EENC 2022 conference is rEEdefine: redefining how we reflect, connect and identify in the field of EE. 

Expanding EE: EENC strives to make our organization and environmental education more accessible and welcoming to all communities. There are many individuals, organizations and programs doing EE, even if that term isn’t explicitly used to describe their work. Presentations in this strand might address: 

• Food justice, land justice, and/ or environmental justice as environmental education
  
• Environmental education in urban planning: access to green space, public transportation, and healthy food
• EE as a way to address the climate crisis
• Recreation as a pathway/ entry point to EE; EE and sports/ recreation
• Culturally relevant environmental education: art exhibitions, ethnobotany, traditional ways of knowing & being
• Bringing the outdoors indoors in formal classroom settings

Healing in Nature: Being in, learning about, and reclaiming the outdoors can all be forms of personal or collective healing. Presentations in this strand might address:

• Forming, performing and adoring personal identities outdoors (i.e., race, gender, sexuality)
• Trauma-informed healing programs in EE for veterans or other populations
• Foraging & natural medicine
• Nature as a therapeutic practice 

EE as a Bridge: EE is an interdisciplinary field with roots in many traditions and can help cultivate connections across these seemingly different fields. Session ideas for this topic may include:

• Making EE more accessible for marginalized populations (i.e., neurodivergent participants, larger bodies, elderly populations or low-income youth)
• Connecting formal & informal environmental education 
• Connecting EE research & practice
• EE as a way to address the rural/ urban collide

Back to the Youth: From providing input on programmatic goals to taking control of their own learning, youth are vital stakeholders in environmental education. Sessions in this strand might address: 

• Youth-led EE: programs designed by youth, for youth
• Forming programmatic partnerships with youth to give young people agency in decision-making processes and program content 
• EE that focuses on positive youth development
• EE career pathways for young people