Empowering educators, cultivating stewards: Bridging campus and community through environmental education

Towson University hosted 35 university and college faculty from across Maryland for the second annual Higher Education Environmental Literacy (HEEL) Summit, in partnership with the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education (MAEOE), on June 13.

The summit brings together university faculty, who specialize in teacher education, from across the state to explore new strategies, share best practices and forge partnerships. They take their new-found knowledge and resources back to their classrooms and integrate it into coursework with pre-service teachers, ensuring that they, as future educators, are equipped to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards.

A critical part of the summit is bringing together faculty and non-formal environmental education providers to explore and forge partnerships to further integrate environmental literacy in teacher education. BTU (Baltimore + Towson University) was proud to be involved in supporting the HEEL Summit and had the opportunity to share TU’s Community Engagement Guiding Principles before kicking off partnership discussions.

Breakout sessions included:

Elit through issue investigations
Engaging learners through local phenomena and environmental data
VR field trips: Virtual ecosystems, real connections
Environmental literacy and AI

Climate education: A trauma-informed approach
Nature journaling across disciplines
Teaching watershed pollution with preservice teachers
Leveraging your sustainable campus
Weaving environmental literacy into math methods

The day-long HEEL Summit was organized by faculty members Chelsea McClure, College of Education, and Sarah Haines, Fisher College of Science and Mathematics, and is a component of a six-month fellowship program, providing professional learning for Maryland’s higher education faculty.