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MAEOE – Be Green, Learn Green, Live Green

The annual Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education Conference was held in Ocean City Maryland February 3rd-5th, 2023. The theme of the conference this year was Be Green, Learn Green, Live Green.

What does it mean to Be Green?

Green is a term used for being environmental friendly. It refers to keeping our earth healthy and clean. Being green means respecting our environment by keeping it clean and not leaving trash around, while using our resources in the right way, without wasting them.

MAEOE is a wonderful organization that helps schools in Maryland to be Green Schools. This is my school’s 4th year recertifying as a green school. In order to do the application for our recertification we have to collet data on how our school is green! The MAEOE conference is one way that I bring back information and ideas on ways our school can thrive in being green.

Landscape Design for Nature Educators

The first workshop I attended at the conference this year was a landscape design workshop! I was super excited about it because as an art educator, I haven’t had much learning about landscaping, planting or designing gardens. Though as the green school coordinator, who has won a few grants for our school for environmental projects, it would greatly help me plan for outdoor gardens at our school.

I learned so much from this workshop. The presenters gave us all a folder of information about native plants, which shared when to plant and where. We also learned a lot about how to work with the stakeholders at our school, because it is a team effort to keep these gardens going.

Eco-Anxiety/Grief

Another amazing workshop was about dealing with the anxiety and grief that can come from the state of our ecosystem. It is vital to grieve… to release the ideas we have of what we expect. We come at the world with a negativity bias, which helps us survive through lifetimes. But it is important to see into the present moment… using nature to help us regulate our emotions in the now. We can visit the past and the future, but we should not live there. Practicing gratitude intentionally. We created nature mandalas and did a thought experiment called Future Beings! Such a great session.

Environmental Team

I am excited that I get to be apart of such a wonderful team of people who love spending time with nature, and really see the value of connecting with the earth. Being the green school coordinator at my school allows me such amazing experiences and opportunities to learn more ways to remind people we are all connected. I love making connections at these events, because it allows us to create better experiences for our students while working with other passionate educators.

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Ridgely Gardeners

Yesterday we had a master gardener come to green club! She presented on pollinators, and pollinator gardens. We learned a lot of information about the different types of pollinators there are… did you know the Baltimore Checkerspot Butterfly was the Maryland insect?

We have a pollinator butterfly garden which was created about 5 years ago. Over the past few years, the garden had been neglected due to a transfer of responsibility. Taking on this new role as green school coordinator, the transfer of information from the last coordinator was not easy. After experiencing this, I have decided its best to keep very well organized records. I plan to remain the green school coordinator for a while… but if I were to move on from the position, I want to be able to give the next teacher all they need to be successful in the endeavour of keeping the green school climate going. If my goal is to assist in a climate and culture shift in perspective in terms of reducing the amount of pollution and waste…then it only makes sense I keep in my the future of what I am creating and not only thinking of the future of the earth. Micro/Macro. I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming blog.

Back to the garden…

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Here is the before:

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and after:

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Big thank you the PTA who sent out a signup genus to find some parent volunteers. There were 3 parent volunteers who were a HUGE help.

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Our garden turned out completely transformed, and we now can start to think about planting some more pollinators, and adding some type of art installation! It was such a wonderful time, being in nature and helping the pollinators!

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