Dear SEMIS Coalition Members,
Earlier this month, the SEMIS Coalition co-hosted the 9th National Place-Based Education Conference with the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative, bringing over 500 educators from across the country (and around the world) together in southeast Michigan for three very full days. The conference was record-breaking on many fronts – the largest number of presentations (over 120), the highest amount of scholarships provided (over $90,000), the largest number of states participating (nearly 30), and by far the largest number of participants in the conference’s history. Reflecting on the experience, though, it wasn’t the ways that the conference had grown or changed that struck me the most. It was the way that, despite its growth, it still felt so similar to its predecessors – personal, incredibly relational, and a place where ideas and resources were shared generously and genuinely.
Throughout the conference and in the week or so since it concluded, one phrase has been sticking with me – “When times are urgent, slow down.” I’d heard the phrase from a longtime community organizer with the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center on our first day of the conference, but was struck by how many times it showed up in other places during the week. To me, the phrase is an invitation, and one that feels relentlessly timely. And despite all the busyness of preparing and hosting an unexpectedly large gathering, and the growing sense of urgency of all of our work, the three days of the conference still somehow felt like an opportunity to take that invitation seriously – to pause to authentically connect with other educators, to have space to learn and share learnings, and to sit together with big ideas and even bigger questions, buoyed the strength that all that togetherness brought.
What follows is an attempt to share, through photos and stories, a little bit of the joy, connection, and restorative ‘slowing down’ the conference brought to us. Our immense gratitude goes out to the conference organizer, the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative, the dozens of volunteers, the generous sponsors, and the hundreds of educators and learners that made this week so remarkable. A special thank you, also, to Todd Marsee from Michigan SeaGrant for capturing so much of the week in photos!
Mudpuppy observations on Belle Isle (left) Traveling Dialogue at the Grace Lee Boggs Center in Detroit (right)
Day One – Immersion Experiences
The conference began early on a Wednesday morning with a set of seven Immersion Experiences that provided opportunities all across Southeast Michigan for deep, experiential learning, and a chance to see the richness of place-based learning opportunities in our region. Immersion experiences included a full-day visit to Belle Isle in Detroit, where participants engaged in conservation programming that helps monitor Michigan’s largest amphibian, the mudpuppy (photo below/above!), visited the Belle Isle Nature Center, Conservancy, and Aquarium, and got to experience how the island can be a partner for teachers in designing and facilitating place-based learning.
Farmer TC Collins in Ford STEAM Early Learning Center outdoor classroom (left) New greenhouse at Ypsilanti Community High School (right)
The SEMIS Coalition team led a Traveling Dialogue Immersion Experience that brought participants into conversation with community members across Southeast Michigan around issues of ecojustice and how educators can authentically bring community voices, stories, and practices into place-based learning. Conversation partners included educators, students, and community members at Salina Elementary and Intermediate schools in South Dearborn, community resilience hub leaders at the Eastside Community Network, and longtime stewards and practitioners of community leadership at the James and Grace Lee Boggs Center. Other Immersion Experiences included an overview of place-based education pedagogy and tour of place-based learning sites at Ypsilanti Community Schools with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, a student-led place-based exploration of Mill Creek with third and fourth graders from Wylie Elementary, a visit to Matthaei Botanical Gardens and the Woodlands at Bruin Lake to explore responses to biodiversity, play, and wellness, and a walking/rolling experience through EMU’s campus learning how to read the cultural landscape of a place with local historian Matt Siegfried. Across all of these experiences, conference attendees got the chance to slow down and more deeply connect with each other and local places, whether through extended conversations on a bus, intentional mindfulness and reflection activities, or just bathing in the sounds of an urban natural landscape through a student-built ‘Nature’s Megaphone.’
Belle Isle (left two photos) Wylie Elementary students present at Mill Creek (right)
Day Two – Keynote, Conference Sessions, and the Place-Based Celebration
That sense of connection from day one grounded us during the second day of the conference as we gathered at the EMU Student Center and began to appreciate the true scale and impact of a 500+ person conference. As EMU student volunteers welcomed and guided participants into the ballroom, it was impossible to ignore the bigness of it all – both the number of people (it was standing room only by the time the morning officially kicked off) and the abundance of energy and camaraderie. The day officially began with the conference’s first keynote speaker, Daniela Anino, the Site Director at Aveson School of Leaders in Pasadena, California. Through photos and her personal account Daniela shared with us the remarkable story of how the Aveson School, which was completely destroyed by the Eaton Fire in January of this year, leaned on its sense of place, its school-community partnerships, and the power of activated hope to help students and families cope with extraordinary loss and displacement and find a new way forward together.
Caleb Carlton, President and CEO of Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative welcomes conference participants (left) Daniela Anino from Aveson School (right)
Following the keynote, the day continued with a breathtaking 54 presentations that spanned topics ranging from place-based education for math classrooms, to centering indigenous wisdom in place-based learning, to the benefits of risky play, to place-based ways to leverage virtual reality and artificial intelligence, and many (many) more. At this point in the conference, I had already lost my voice (making me a particularly unhelpful conference host/guide), so I instead got to spend the day listening in on the workshops and presentations. What struck me most was how generative every session I attended was. Participants were regularly engaged in conversations, problem-solving, or brainstorming with each other, emphasizing the practice of democratic classrooms so central to place-based learning and our Coalition – everyone was a teacher and everyone was a learner. I could also see how it began to forge broader networks of relationships between participants and illuminating the common ground and common challenges we all face, regardless of the geography, grade levels or subjects taught, or types of schools people worked in.
Indigenous Ways of Knowing presentation with Jared TenBrink, Jim Barnes and Dr. Nigora Erkaeva (left) NOAA ElP student fishbowl presentation (right)
Outdoor Learning sessions were held by the lake near the EMU Student Center (left) Session participants table discussion (right)
The afternoon sessions transitioned into a beautiful evening of celebration, including a set of awards for leadership in place-based education for Julie Metty Bennett and Ethan Lowenstein, and recognition of an outstanding teacher (Ian Dudley), administrator (Daniela Anino), and community partners (Ebony, Erika, and Marcia Hood). These educators all shared messages of the power of tuning in to the places around us and the relationships we and our young people have with them, and how that attention itself can be a radical act that transforms education. The Place-Based Celebration event culminated in an acoustic, and incredibly moving, performance by Michigan artist May Erlewine. Amidst twinkling lights, excellent food, and what had quickly become very, very good company, May shared stories and sang us songs of resilience, the joy of nature, and love.
Table settings and lights created a beautiful evening setting (left) Samara Awardee Ethan Lowenstein (right)
By the end of a day that should have felt busy, I was again moved by the ‘slowness’ of it all: how connected, restored, and grateful I felt to be a part of this community.
Ian Dudley (left) Ebony, Erika and Marcia Hood (middle) May Erlewine (right)
Day Three – Keynote, Conference Sessions, and Closing Panel
The final day of the conference opened with its second Keynote speaker, Dr. Kyle Whyte, a professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan and researcher on the moral and political issues concerning climate change and indigenous peoples. Himself a member of the Citizen Potawotami Nation, Dr. Whyte shared stories and his own learning from the many indigenous communities he’s worked with about how indigenous and environmental traditions are rooted in memories and knowledge systems developed across many generations. In indigenous practices, the land is often thought of as an ancestor who holds memories and plays an important role in the health and well-being of the community. While colonial perspectives often frame the issues of today as unprecedented, indigenous perspectives leverage long-term, historical memory of many environmental changes to respond to our current climate. He emphasized that Indigenous knowledges are inherently place-based, originating from long-standing relationships with ancestral lands, and that place-based stewardship education should cultivate moral responsibilities and strong community ties for living adaptively with nonhuman beings and entities, such as plants, animals, and water.
Dr. Kyle Whyte
The conference continued with another 54 presentations and workshops sharing ideas and engaging in conversations about topics such as the role of personal identity in shaping place-based educators, building food systems literacy through place-based learning, ecojustice education, vernal pool monitoring, and many more! My voice having partially returned, I spent most of my day in the hallways helping speakers and participants find their session rooms and troubleshoot any tech issues, but while I moved through the halls, I couldn’t help but notice how much laughter I heard coming from the rooms. Joy and play, which are also central to place-based learning, seemed to find their way into every session, playing their own role in helping us build a stronger community and deeper learning.
T.C. Collins from Willow Run Acres presents with SEMIS Coalition (left) Lisa Voelker presents a Story Spot (right)
The conference closed on Friday with a special kind of keynote panel – one that was designed to help us think about how to take this work, and this feeling of solidarity and resilience, forward. And, as I shared in my introduction for this panel, there is no better conversation partner for the future than young people. Guided by expert facilitator and youth voice advocate Bryan Lewis, the closing keynote panel featured three young people who have been shaped in some way by place-based education, who are shaping their own futures around place based learning and who we are lucky enough to stand alongside as they help shape what place-based learning will look like for the generations after them. One of the panelists, Liz Thomson, is an early-career science teacher with Alcona Middle School in Northeast Michigan. She grew up immersed in place-based learning with the Northeast Michigan GLSI Hub as a student and the daughter of a teacher with a passion for place-based learning. In her remarks she shared the importance of welcoming young teachers into the place-based learning community and how important these networks have been for her own development. Another one of the panelists, who also has a connection to a GLSI hub, was Annabelle Barnes (daughter of SEMIS Coalition member Jim Barnes!) Annabelle is 17 years old and recently participated in the Alaska Tides to Tongass Science and Arts Academy (ATTSAA), a place-based learning experience in remote Alaska. Annabelle shared her learning from that experience, including learning about foraging and creating natural salves, exploring the intertidal zone, and learning about Native Alaskan culture and art. She also encouraged educators to continue to expose young people to experiences outside of the classroom and especially away from technology to help them imagine futures and careers beyond what they see in front of them. The final panelist will be very familiar to this community – our very own Willie King III. Willie, who recently began the next chapter of career as a classroom teacher, shared how important education was in his story and the influence educators and mentors who were brave enough to do something different had on him. Willie encouraged educators to be weird, to challenge norms, and to always lead with love.
Friday Closing Keynote Panel – Bryan Lewis, Willie King III, Liz Thomson and Annabelle Barnes
Warm cider, good memories, and full hearts in hand, we said farewell to the big (and yet still ‘small’) community we’d built over the conference’s three days. Our calendars, to-do lists, and inboxes have filled up since, but I am grateful to continue to be holding the anchor of that ‘slowness’. These are indeed urgent times and I am glad for this growing community to move slowly and intentionally alongside as we face them.
In Partnership,
Anna
Director, SEMIS Coalition | abalzer1@emich.edu
***Photo credits: SEMIS Coalition and GLSI Team, and Todd Marsee from Michigan Sea Grant***
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