Building Indigenous Inclusion in Our EE Program: Deleting the "Just" Button
This blog was produced and developed by Julia Beck, vice president of networks at Project WET, in collaboration with Renee Sans Souci. All Images and videos of Renee are from a Project WET training that took place in January of 2023.
When we started with ee360+ in Year 1, we thought we could “just” connect with tribal partners by reaching out to them the same way we do to non-native educators. Send an email, a flyer, and train educators on water in our award-winning curriculum. We were ignorant about the pain and harm to Native Americans from hundreds of years of colonialism. Sending “just” emails and surveys resulted in crickets.
This video goes through six major takeaways Project WET has learned while training on Indigenous inclusion with Native educators through the ee360+ program.
About Project WET:
Since 1984, WET has been dedicated to solving critical environmental challenges by teaching the world about water. WET’s mission is to advance water education by providing objective, hands-on, science-based water education resources to formal and nonformal educators around the world. Learn more here.
This eePRO blog series, Ripple Effects, highlights stories of collaboration and impact among partners in the ee360+ Leadership and Training Collaborative. ee360+ is an ambitious multi-year initiative that connects, trains, and promotes innovative leaders dedicated to using the power of education to create a more just and sustainable future for everyone, everywhere. Led by NAAEE, ee360+ is made possible through funding and support from U.S. EPA and twenty-seven partner organizations representing universities and nonprofits across the country, as well as five federal agencies. Through this partnership, ee360+ brings together more than five decades of expertise to grow, strengthen, and diversify the environmental education field.