The Ecology School to Participate in Nationwide Residential Environmental Education Partnership

Drew Dumsch (TES President & CEO) and Alex Grindle (TES Director of Programs) were recently selected to participate in the Residential Environmental Education Partnership (REEP) to collaboratively work through the question of how to most effectively incorporate Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) frameworks, research, and preferred practices into residential environmental education (EE) programming. The working group has been convened by NatureBridge through its Character Development grant, an initiative of the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. Nature Bridge is the largest residential education partner of the National Park Services, providing environmental science programs to more than 30,000 students and their teachers within National Parks.

More than 65 organizations expressed interest from across the U.S. and Canada. Participating REEP organizations were chosen for their geographic reach, organizational capacity, diversity of participants served, and unique perspectives on SEL. Over the next year, REEP organizations will aggregate collective wisdom in the service of establishing common language and developing shared tools related to SEL in the context of residential EE.

“We are both excited and humbled by the opportunity to collaborate and contribute to our sector and we look forward to sharing our collective findings to engage the greater environmental education sector in a meaningful way." said Estrella Risinger, National Education Manager, Nature Bridge.