The Long Game: How Deep Partnerships Build Lasting Impact
This blog post was written by Krysten Dorfman, program manager, and Vince Meldrum, president and CEO, of Earth Force.
Eight years into a partnership, something shifts. The conversations get more honest. The adaptations get more creative. And the students, who are the whole point, start doing things nobody planned for. That's where Earth Force is with our partnership with Inland Seas Education Association, because it's where ee360 and now ee360+ have brought us over eight years of shared work.
Consider two projects currently underway with educators who trained with Inland Seas Education Association (ISEA) on Lake Michigan this past fall. One group of students is re-invigorating a native plant garden to address stormwater runoff near their school playground. Early on, they were generating wide-ranging hypotheses (including whether grass clippings from mowers might be contributing to turbidity in nearby water) and imagining solutions like a floating dock to monitor a retention pond. Rather than narrowing their vision too quickly, their teachers stayed with them in the inquiry, helping them investigate, test assumptions, and ultimately focus their energy into a grounded, ecologically sound project. Another group working on pollinator habitat took their research in directions nobody scripted. They attended a beekeeping class alongside their teacher, and when they learned their school was acquiring a new property, showed up to a school board meeting to understand how that land might be used. As of April, students have acquired bees, who are currently settling into their hive boxes, painted by students! Both stories point to the same thing: students who followed the process wherever it led, supported by educators who trusted them to go there.
Built on the Water, Sustained Over Time
Each year, ISEA runs the Great Lakes Watershed Field Course (GLWFC), an immersive professional development experience held at their campus on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. Around 30 educators gather over several days for place-based learning rooted in the Great Lakes ecosystem, featuring a sailing expedition on one of ISEA’s schooners to collect samples and learn about lake health. Teachers who complete the course receive a mini-grant to support student learning during the following school year, with ongoing coaching and networking built into the process.
Teachers and ISEA staff in front of their ship during the Great Lakes Watershed Field Course. Photo credit: Julie Johnson
This year, Earth Force has been embedded in those follow-up coaching sessions, joining ISEA staff for three small-group check-ins with teachers across the school year. These working sessions surface real challenges, celebrate what's emerging, and create space to deepen dimensions like youth voice, youth-adult partnerships, and civic focus. The student projects above didn't happen by accident. They reflect educators who have a space to bring their questions and push their practice throughout the year.
None of this would be possible without long-term commitment. The ee360+ partnership has been the foundation of our work with ISEA since 2018, and what it has enabled is a useful reminder of what the field can build when we stay in a relationship long enough for real trust to develop.
A Partnership That Runs Both Ways
Great Lakes Watershed Field Course participants getting a tour from a local organization about how they have implemented different solutions to restore a local creek. Photo credit: Julie Johnson
What's made this work sustainable is that it has never been one-directional. Earth Force brings connections to what partners across the country are trying and support for deepening civic engagement dimensions. ISEA brings deep knowledge of the Great Lakes ecosystem, strong relationships with regional educators, and hard-won insight into how a youth-led approach to community resilience works in their context. Each year, we understand the work a little better because of what we've built together.
"This partnership works because of how we iterate," said Krysten Dorfman, Earth Force program manager. "ISEA has been with us through a few generations of staff on both ends, and we continue to have a reciprocal exchange of training, sharpening, and practice that moves the field forward."
"We’re constantly having to be flexible and creative to find ways to adapt the Earth Force model for all kinds of educators throughout the Great Lakes and their different school settings and unique scenarios," said Julie Johnson, ISEA school partnership coordinator. “Earth Force has been an excellent partner in supporting our teachers and their watershed-focused projects. We’re excited to see how the partnership will continue to evolve and grow with each iteration of the Field Course.”
What Eight Years Builds
After eight years of shared work, ISEA has joined Earth Force’s Flagship Partners program—a gathering of ten long-term organizational partners convening throughout 2026 to sharpen their practice as trainers and push toward more authentic civic engagement for young people. It's a space for organizations that have done the sustained work of integrating, questioning, and improving the model, and are ready to help define what best practice looks like for the field.
Students investigating their issue in depth and following through with informed, creative action isn't the product of any single training moment. It’s what happens when educators are supported year after year to go deeper. And that's what the ee360+ partnership is built on: the conviction that the most important thing we can do for environmental education isn't to reach more people at once—it's to stay with partners long-term to build stronger efforts together.
Teachers present their Environmental Citizens during the GLWFC. The Environmental Citizen Activity is a hallmark of Step 1 in the Earth Force Process. Photo credit: Julie Johnson
This eePRO blog series, Ripple Effect, 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 healthy and sustainable future for everyone, everywhere. Led by NAAEE, ee360+ is made possible through funding and support from U.S. EPA and twenty-five 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 and strengthen the environmental education field.