The 2024 Honoring Our Rivers Student Anthology is now available!
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Attention PNW Environmental Educators

A CALL FOR PAPERS

Share your teaching ideas, success stories, or perspectives in CLEARING!

Scroll through recent articles from CLEARING

Landscape and Language

Landscape and Language Going outside can enhance language arts skills and open childrens’ eyes to the wonder of nature. By Lorraine Ferra When the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke admitted to his sculptor friend Rodin that he had come to a standstill in his writing, the...

Integrating Place-based EE, Literacy, and the Performing Arts

Staging Nature Integrating Place-based Environmental Education, Literacy, and the Performing Arts by Regine Randall, Rebecca Edmondson, and MaryAnne Young   "Teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher!”  Such a cry is likely to get any educator’s attention—and...

Focusing on local environmental issues

Building Environmental Education from Community Resources Sophie Diliberti, Justin Hougham, Brad Bessler, and Brooke Bellmar   ocusing on specific aspects of learners’ local context can increase their engagement in environmental education. One way for educators to...

Field-based Research

How to Design Field-based Research Experiences By Molly L. Sultany, msultany@nwacademy.org High School Teacher, Northwest Academy, Portland, Oregon Navigating Unchartered Waters How can educators help students feel more connected to the outdoors while engaging with...

Idaho Environmental Education Teacher Award

Idaho teacher awarded for environmental education instruction Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on June 26, 2023 Misha Smith, a sixth grade teacher at Hawthorne Elementary in Boise, earned two recognitions for her work as an environmental science and geography...

Experiential Learning to Create Authentic Learning

Experiential Learning to Create Authentic Learning by Haley Korcz hen in your academic career did you question why you were learning something or how it would benefit you in real life? Did real-life connections from your academic learning impact your career choice?...

Equity in a Time of Socio-Environmental Justice

Equity in a Time of Socio-Environmental Justice by Max Jimenez Environmental Literacy, Policy This article was republished with permission and originally appeared in California Classroom Science (CCS), an e-newsletter produced by the California Science Teachers...

“We will not go back to normal. Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate, and lack. We should not long to return, my friends....

Special Issue: Justice, Equity and Diversity in Environmental Education

Guest Editor: R. Justin Hougham, Ph.D. Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison Special Advisor: Derek Hoshiko, Community Organizer and Educator on Climate Change and Environmental Equity e are excited to bring our readers this special edition of CLEARING...

Using Stations to Increase Student Independence: Overview and Lesson Plan

by Allison Breeze s an educator, I believe that learning happens when students are applying their knowledge in practice. To this end, I am always looking for activities that engage students in hands-on ways with whatever topic they are learning about. Exploration and...

Maybe the problem wasn’t WHAT we were learning but WHERE we were learning?

At-risk students are exposed to their local environment to gain an appreciation for their community, developing environmental awareness built on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors applied through actions.   Lindsay Casper and Brant G. Miller University of Idaho...

Exploring the Classroom Beyond: A Beginner’s Guide to Implementing Place-based Education

by Lucy Clothier eing a new teacher in this contemporary era of education can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. The demands placed upon teachers are extensive, often lacking clear pathways to achieving these substantial goals. Within the...

Finding Dragons

by Erin Banks Rusby rerinted from the Idaho Press n the summer of 2023, a group of high school students and adults converged over their shared interest in science and dragonflies. Known as the Finding Dragons program, the effort aimed to provide hands-on, publishable...

Leaning into Content with Lesson Sequencing

by Zachary Zimmerman Bainbridge Island, WA s an outdoor educator, I often get sucked into the false binary that lessons are either fun or informative, that content must be sweetened with games, stories, and activities like applesauce for children’s medicine. But...

Bird by Bird We Come to Know the Earth

by Emma Belanger As someone who comes from a low-income background and grew up in a semi-urban environment, birds were one of the first aspects of the more-than-human world that I felt truly connected to without having to obtain expensive gear, resources, or and a way...

Asking Questions

Key Considerations for Asking Questions as a Field-Based Science Instruction By Amos Pomp Introduction We do not ask [questions] in a vacuum; what we ask, how, and when are all related. – Bang et al., 2018 How can field-based science instructors be intentional with...

ADHD in the Outdoors

Five 5th-grade students sit or stand facing a sunny pond surrounded by lush greenery, working on a writing task or exploring quietly. Photographed by Greyson Lee Background Music and Birdsong: ADHD in the Outdoors by Greyson Lee After several hours of watching my dad...

River Newe: Creating New Narratives

River Newe: Creating New Narratives On Historic Landscapes In this article we present our work that directly addresses Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) for our tribal youth of the Shoshone-Bannock people. We have reimagined what JEDI means for us...

The Judgment of the Barnacles

There’s a song in the sea for those who listen, and messages in the sand for those with far reaching eyes.   By Dr. Gloria Snively and Doug Wonnacott The morning silently creeps in upon the gray, green waves. Smooth flat rocks that tumbled together for a thousand...

Ear to the Ground: Interviews with PNW Environmental Educators

  Robert Steelquist, Coastal Explorer, Environmental Educator (2021) Jane Tesner Kleiner (2021) Greening the Schoolgrounds Gary Dorr (Standing Red Bear) (2018) Reclaiming a Culture through the Traditional Canoe Monica Nissen (2015) 2015 Environmental Educator of the...

Additional print copies of the Anthology are available through this website. Click here to order.

Selected articles from past issues

CLEARING is published in support of state/regional E.E. associations
and organizations in the Pacific Northwest.

Alaska Natural Resources and Outdoor Education

Columbia Basin Environmental Education Network

Environmental Education Provincial Specialist Association (British Columbia)

Idaho Environmental Education Association