Change is Coming: 2024 Youth Outdoor Policy Trends & 2025 State-level Advocacy Strategies

The webinar recording is now available!

The Youth Outdoor Policy Partnership is a collaboration of leading national organizations working across sectors to ensure that all children have access to high-quality outdoor experiences and environmental education. Every year, we publish an Annual Trend Report that shares innovative policies to encourage legislators, advocates, communities and youth to replicate, rethink and collaborate to build equitable youth outdoor opportunities. Together, we’ll explore the latest state-level policy updates from 2024, winning coalition-building strategies, and exciting advocacy strategies for 2025 with a panel of youth outdoor policy leaders.

Learn about legislative strategies to advance public policies that increase access to nature-connected learning and youth engagement. This webinar occurred on December 3, 2024 at 2 pm EST. 

Panelists:

• David Beard, Director of Policy & Government Affairs, Children & Nature Network. David was previously the Policy & Advocacy Director at School’s Out Washington where he facilitated SOWA’s advocacy efforts, including educating policymakers and working with providers and stakeholders to secure more funding and better policies for the expanded learning field. Throughout his career, David has been an advocate for children and families. After working as the Policy Director at the Washington State Council for Children and Families, he spent five years at the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Maryland Advocates for Children and Youth, both dedicated to education policy issues ranging from pre-k access to student discipline reform. In his free time, David loves exploring one of the world’s most beautiful urban areas and hiking in the Cascades. 
• Megan Fink, Partnerships & Policy Manager, North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE). Megan began working in the field of environmental education over a decade ago and brings a robust, place-based, outdoor education background to the NAAEE team. She has built enduring working relationships across the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the Mid-Atlantic region. As a graduate of Virginia Tech with a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Science and Biology, Megan began her career as an Environmental Educator at the North Carolina Aquariums before joining the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) in 2011. Through several program management positions with CBF, she led students, teachers, school administrators and environmental professionals in ecological, cultural and historical investigations of the Bay. She also managed a statewide leadership program for high school students, teaching them how to become environmental advocates at the local, regional and national levels.
• Grant Gliniecki, Outdoor Policy Coordinator, National Caucus of Environmental Legislators. Grant is passionate about outdoor education, recreation, and public land access. Their approach celebrates how outdoor policy can help us find shared values on complicated environmental issues while promoting equity, opportunity, and health for all. He is especially interested in identifying our opportunities and responsibilities to support environmentally committed tribal government legislators, reaffirm tribal sovereignty, and promote awareness of treaty obligations at local, state, and federal levels. Grant holds a Community Sustainability M.S. and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Community Sustainability, both at Michigan State University. He lives in Nkwejong  // Where the rivers meet (Lansing, MI), where he founded and serves as President of Giitigan, an Anishinaabe Community Garden nonprofit sharing Anishinaabe food, language, and science through urban gardening. They love hiking, canoeing, porcupine quillwork, sugarbushing, and especially gardening.
• Janice Marchman, Senator, Colorado State Senate, Vice Chair of the Education Committee and Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee. As a parent, school board member of a 16,000-student school district, and largest employer in Loveland, and now as a public school teacher, Janice understands the needs of students and parents. She knows the challenges working families face to make ends meet, and she empathizes with our retired neighbors who struggle to afford their property taxes and health care. Janice is dedicated to serving as a voice for Colorado’s working communities. As an elected official, Janice serves as a member of her community who understands what it means to struggle under financial hardship, who has felt what it is like to be without representation, and who will give a voice to the values of working families and parents. Janice is committed to supporting policies that address homelessness, help those with behavioral health conditions, address financial hardship, develop jobs and living wages, increase affordable housing, deliver quality health care for all, and preserve our Colorado way of life.
• Kendal Scott, Outdoor Education Lead, Nevada Department of Outdoor Recreation. Kendal Scott (she/her) manages the Nevada Outdoor Education & Recreation grant program and works to uplift outdoor education opportunities across the state. She has over a decade of experience developing outdoor environmental education programs and facilitating experiential learning for youth in California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Alaska. She received her MS in Parks, Recreation & Tourism from the University of Utah and also holds a BS in Recreation Management. Kendal enjoys backpacking trips in search of wildflowers, playing dress up in thrift stores, snowboarding, and paddling Western waters.