Summer Institute  Each year, we design our annual Summer Institute around an ecological theme, creating a common language for engaging in deep cultural-ecological analysis, project planning, and community inquiry and action.  Using the best practices of professional development, place-based education is studied in the context of content standard requirements, experiential learning, civic engagement processes and curriculum content resources.  In this way, diverse partners and teachers come together to share knowledge through deep place-based experiences, including teacher and student led learning with SEMIS Coalition support. 

Summer Institute Themes have included: 

  • 2018: How can we use Place-based Education and an Ecojustice framework to investigate our interconnectedness with the natural environment and our communities?
  • 2017: How can we understand our water and urban landscapes as interconnected and live in ways that create just and healthy communities? (Continued)
  • 2016: How can we understand our water and urban landscapes as interconnected and live in ways that create just and healthy communities? 
  • 2015: What does it mean to belong to a community? A Great Lakes Identify
  • 2014: Exploring the Commons 
  • 2013: Great Lakes Literacy 
  • 2012: Urban Agriculture: The Story of Food, Community & Justice 
  • 2011: Detroit as Our Place: Ecological, Economic & Historical Stories 
  • 2010: Water: A Hidden History 
  • 2009: Interconnectedness: Racism & Ecology 
  • 2008: EcoJustice & Place-Based Education 

Please check out our Facebook Album of Summer Institute Photos!