EVENT
SPONSORSHIP
Dear Environmental Education Supporter,
We invite you to show your support for environmental education in our state by sponsoring Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE) events this year. KACEE unites public agencies, teachers, community organizations, businesses, and individuals behind a common cause - teaching kids how to think, not what to think, about environmental issues through non-biased and science-based EE.
KACEE is a 501(c)3 organization with a vison to grow a healthy, vibrant and resilient Kansas through the power of environmental education. A portion of your sponsorship is tax deductible. Your sponsorship will be recognized in our promotions, reaching 1300+ people across Kansas.
By sponsoring our fundraising events, you will help offset costs, reduce registration fees, and provide scholarships for educators. Support for environmental education is vital for a healthy environment, vibrant economy, and successful communities.
If environmental education is something that you or your organization deeply values, sponsoring one or more of our events provides the opportunity to live your values and lead your community by example.
Thank you for your consideration!
The KACEE Board and Staff
Serve with AmeriCorps Kansas! Led by the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE), the Environmental Education Corps (eeCorps) AmeriCorps Program places AmeriCorps members at organizations throughout Kansas to focus on increasing environmental literacy for PreK-12 students and building capacity for environmental education in the region.
AmeriCorps is a network of national service programs offering the opportunity for individuals of all ages and backgrounds to serve and meet community needs. Members address the most critical problems in the areas of education, economic opportunity, veterans and military family services, health, the environment, and disaster services.
In exchange for a specific term of service, AmeriCorps members earn a living allowance as well as an educational award to pay back qualified student loans or to finance college, graduate school, or vocational training.
For more information about the AmeriCorps State program and FAQs for members, please visit this website.
The Need for eeCorps in Kansas
The AmeriCorps Kansas eeCorps Program was launched in 2022 and is modeled after similar programs in Colorado and Kentucky.
In 2020, Fort Hays State University (Clay, 2021) conducted a survey of 224 urban, suburban, rural, and frontier rural teachers across multiple grades and subject areas in Kansas with the goal of trying to understand educators’ perspectives on barriers to environmental education in the classroom. Several barriers were identified which limit the inclusion of EE as a part of what every child experiences in school. Barriers include lack of field experiences, and lack of training and materials specific to grade level, subject and/or geographic region. The following data creates a compelling rationale for supporting educators to teach EE in their classrooms: When asked, 73.6% of teachers surveyed said they would be likely to integrate environmental education into their teaching if barriers were addressed. Skilled, professional environmental educators are needed to address these barriers identified by classroom teachers; they support student learning through field trips, school-based programming, and teacher professional development. But Kansas has a chronic lack of environmental educators to meet the needs of students and teachers. That's where eeCorps comes in. KACEE leads the eeCorps program in Kansas, working with a number of AmeriCorps 'host sites' across the state. These sites—nature centers, zoos, and other sites offering EE—host AmeriCorps members who support, deliver and develop environmental education programming to area students. For each of the host sites, there are currently only 1-2 educators who provide EE to PreK-12 students in their communities and supporting EE instruction in classrooms. For example, the Nature Reach program in Pittsburg has only one staff person serving 20 districts with just under 20,000 students in a 50 mile radius. On average, Nature Reach provides programming to 4,000 students, or only 20% of those within a 50-mile radius. Further, because of the chronic lack of funding and capacity, programs like Nature Reach have a fee associated with providing programming and service, which disadvantages districts with lower income bases. With support of AmeriCorps at sites like Nature Reach, the fees can be eliminated and more students can be reached thanks to the additional capacity that eeCorps members provide. Thanks to the AmeriCorps position at Ernie Miller Nature Center, the program was able to expand to offer EE to early childhood students, an audience they were not previously serving. At Nature Reach, the AmeriCorps member provided environmental education to new audiences and reached over 1700 additional students. Further, the evaluation data collected indicates that 86.2% of elementary students reported increased knowledge and aptitude toward taking good care of the environment. As we continue to expand the eeCorps program, we will continue to grow capacity for delivery of high quality and non-biased environmental education at host sites across the state. Through increased ability to deliver programs, doubling capacity, consistency, ability to create and deliver new EE programs, there is also the potential to develop climate change programming and offer more programming to Title 1 Schools.
What do eeCorps Members do?
eeCorps members work directly with teachers, schools, and environmental education providers to:
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Provide support in expanding the reach of EE programming
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Increase the impact of EE programming
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Provide access to equitable learning experiences for all PreK-12 students.
Host Sites with Open Positions
Serve with eeCorps Kansas! We are excited to share that we are recruiting for eeCorps positions at these host sites in Kansas. Click on the images below to learn more about each host site: