Save Environmental Education, Save Democracy
The path to democracy and a sustainable world flows through education, including environmental education. Note these are my thoughts as an individual Kansan and not as KACEE's board president.
In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught - Baba Dioum
This wonderful quote from a Senegalese forestry engineer during his presentation to the 1968 General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) applies equally well to the natural world, public education, and democracy. At least an event I recently attended reinforced, for me, the quote’s application to all three.
Last Friday evening (4/4/2025) was a brief respite from the Trump/Musk/MAGA chaos, cruelty, and mayhem infecting our country and increasingly impacting the globe. I had the honor of helping host the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education’s (KACEE’s) annual award banquet as the board president. Every year KACEE honors several outstanding individuals and organizations for their various contributions to conservation and environmental education (EE) within the state.
It’s always a fun evening, with a silent auction, dinner, and drink forming the backdrop for friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and people who’ve just met to bond over, and celebrate, their love of environmental education and conservation. Unfortunately, this year there was a little more to bond over, with existing and anticipated cuts to EE&C related programs and funding, the gutting and/or elimination of various departments, and the federal and state attacks on public education.
But bringing everyone together to celebrate their EE passions - that Washington D.C. and Topeka are directly threatening - I think helped many feel not quite so alone in their struggles. It provided some hope and likely opportunities for some conversations about potential actions to take. It provided an opportunity to celebrate inspiring individuals who have stepped up in support of EE, of the natural world, of kids, and of their communities, who have faced varying challenges and barriers in the process. And celebration itself can be a form of resistance.
So resist with me a little as I recount some of the evening’s celebrations.
As a high performance building consultant who has spent a lot of time evaluating school facilities and helping them be more sustainable, healthy, and resilient (as well as a former school board member), I always enjoy learning about the Kansas Green School of the year awardee. This year it was Sunflower Elementary School, part of the Andover Public School District (USD 385). The award recognizes Kansas public and private schools that have demonstrated innovation, leadership, whole school involvement, and an integrated, holistic, sustainable approach to implementing environmental projects with a strong environmental education component into their schools.
Sunflower’s accomplishments that propelled it to the top included its SOLAR Committee (Sunflower Outdoor Learning and Recreation) that, with the help of school families, has spearheaded many eco-friendly projects, including the creation of an Outdoor Learning Space, sensory garden beds, the planting of trees, a pollinator garden, and various outdoor seating options—all made from recycled materials.
Additionally there is a garden club, a student-led recycling program, and the school, with direct input from KACEE, has previously studied the environmental impact of its waste practices. One of the 5th grade teachers also partnered with Wichita State University students to explore the effects of idling car engines on air quality near the school. Take a look at the awardee announcement page for more details on the school’s green accomplishments. Some pretty cool stuff that’s ultimately helping teach students, their families, and community members to understand, love, and care for the natural world and their schools.
The individuals we honored were all incredibly deserving, but in addition to awarding one of our former board members, Keri Harris, for her lifetime achievements, contributions, and leadership, three other awardees stood out to me for different reasons. The first of these was the winner of the President’s award, a surprise award given each year for outstanding efforts and achievements that advance EE in Kansas and would otherwise likely not be recognized. This year’s awardee was Justin Cobb, who serves as the Government Relations Manager for the Nature Conservancy of Kansas.
KACEE is a founding member of Kansans for Conservation, a coalition of (currently) 42 organizations seeking to secure dedicated and sustained state funding for conservation, wildlife, recreation and, environmental education. This year the coalition introduced HB 2063, which would formally establish this conservation fund, to the House Ag and Natural Resources Committee. We weren’t able to advance the bill this year, but the coalition is already planning for next year with the help and guidance of Justin, who coordinates the coalition’s legislative committee (on top of everything else he does day-to-day).
Justin has a unique talent for understanding and communicating the political landscape, and he worked behind the scenes to get the bill language drafted and through the proper channels so that it could be introduced. In addition to coordinating the bill’s hearing he also oversaw the coalition’s Day at the Capitol, bringing over 80 individuals from the coalition together (including myself, KACEE’s Executive Director Laura Downey, and KACEE’s Director of Kansas Green Schools, Rachel Wahle) to meet with legislators and advocate for the bill.
What made this award so meaningful to me was that even in Kansas’s contentious political climate, the coalition has still been able to move things forward in the legislature, largely due to Justin’s political savvy, logistics managing capabilities, and communication skills. His efforts have helped facilitate a greater understanding among legislators of the importance of a dedicated state funding source for conservation and environmental education, connecting it to the love that many of them have for their own communities’ land, water, and biodiversity, and I was honored to present him with the President’s award.
The second awardee whose story I found especially compelling was the winner of the PreK - 16 Education Award, Kathryn Louderback. Kathryn teaches science at Washburn Rural Middle School in Topeka, part of the Auburn-Washburn Public School District (USD 437). She is passionate about integrating environmental science into every aspect of learning while making it accessible and engaging for all students.
One of her most recent projects, requiring the use of grant funding, was pulling off the school’s “Community Day” event. Activities for the day included planting drought-resistant native flowers, and other accessible hands-on learning experiences that not only taught lessons of environmental science, environmental responsibility, and the importance of maintaining biodiversity, but also beautified the school grounds and helped improve local air quality and biodiversity in the process. See the awardee announcement page for more details of the event and her other accomplishments.
Kathryn also stepped out of her comfort zone to testify before the House Ag and Natural Resources Committee earlier this year in the hearing on HB 2063. She shared with committee members how meaningful a) the support she’s received from KACEE and other EE resources have been for her efforts to equitably teach environmental science, b) the positive impacts on her students of being outdoors and learning about the natural world (and learning to love and care for it), and c) the importance of having a permanent source of state funding for EE (now made even more critical as a result of the chaos in Washington, D.C.). You can view her testimony below, or read it here, and we all owe her a debt of gratitude for stepping up.
During her acceptance remarks I also learned how finding KACEE and gaining access to our organization’s free professional development (also made possible by grant funding) opened up new possibilities for her to engage students and her community (to teach understanding, leading to love, caring for, and conservation of the natural world). Her voice wavering a bit, she told us all how this opportunity helped reinvigorate her passion for teaching. Like far too many Kansas teachers right now, she was struggling a bit to see a future in public education. Hearing her story reinforced my own commitment to keep advocating and fighting for KACEE, EE&C, and public education in our state and to keep resisting the Trump administration and our state’s MAGA GOP leadership.
The last awardee I want to mention was a first for us - the first high school student to receive one of the two Connie Elpers Rising Star Awards given out this year: Chamiru Liyanawaduge, a pretty awesome student from Olathe West High School’s Green Tech Academy, part of the Olathe Public School District (USD 233). In addition to exceling academically, he has shown a commitment to environmental education through his internship with KACEE (that included participating in the Day at the Capital with Laura, Rachel, and myself). His goal is to become a foreign service officer for the United States after majoring in international relations (and rubbing elbows with state legislators while advocating for EE was a good experience to take with him as he pursues his future goals).
Chamiru also exemplifies the importance of EE for all students. While he won’t be directly pursuing EE as a profession, he knows the experiences and knowledge (the understanding) he’s gained, the appreciation (and love) of Kansas’s land, water, and wildlife he’s obtained, will frame and influence his future professional and personal life (including actions and advocacy related to conservation). During his acceptance remarks, he thanked everyone for sharing their varying expertise, knowledge, and passions with him during his internship. And he especially thanked everyone for his award’s symbolic representation of the importance of giving young people a seat at the table.
A quote from one of
’s recent pieces captures some of why Chamiru’s award struck me:In order to get our nation back on track, our economy working again, and our global leadership re-asserted for good, the left needs a jobs program now to hire and resource new leaders. We especially need young Americans who have the skills, worldview, passion, optimism, commitment, and vision to lead our nation into a hopeful and abundant future.
Chamiru certainly exemplifies the type of young people we need to help lead our nation into a hopeful and abundant future. Though it’s also important not to place all of the burden on our youth. It’s not their responsibility to save the rest of us all on their own (especially from the fallout of actions and decisions they had little or nothing to do with). We all have a role to play here, as was exemplified in the diversity present among the awardees.
And with everything under threat - critical funding, decades of collective expertise and data from various agencies, our natural resources, public health, decarbonizing our economy, public and environmental education, the IRA and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the rights of various minority groups, the right to bodily autonomy, the right to not be detained and deported (secretly or otherwise) without due process, the right to exist, and democracy itself - it will take all of us to resist.
Here’s one example of the rippling effects from the actions of Washington, D.C. and Topeka. Many of the accomplishments recognized by these awards were made possible through various grants of federal origins. Actions by the Trump/Musk administration to defund and/or eliminate programs and departments, exacerbated by the likely outcomes of Congress’s budget reconciliation process, will negatively impact the availability of such funds moving forward and potentially KACEE’s ability to assist through the Kansas Green Schools program, provide EE professional development at low or no cost to educators, and offer internships. Other state related conservation efforts negatively impacted by federal actions include the promotion of conservation focused farming and land management practices and the operations and maintenance of our state parks.
And the dismantling of the Department of Education combined with a) the elimination of the extension previously granted to spend COVID relief funds and b) this year’s Topeka legislative actions that underfund special education, end the safe and secure school grants program, and cut funding for teacher professional development and mentor teachers will place further stress on our public school districts. Our GOP controlled legislature is even effectively cutting $1.5 million from base state aid by redirecting dollars from the inflation increase built into the school finance formula to instead pay for an unfunded mandate to add Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs). These are dollars that would have otherwise been spent on operational expenses and teacher salaries.
On top of the finances are of the culture war related attacks over the last several years that collectively targeted trans students and public education. All of this decreases a school’s and district’s ability to integrate and/or maintain EE via curriculum, professional development, and facility/campus improvements.
It all negatively impacts our ability to teach about, and generate understanding of, the natural world, of the public good, of diversity, of democracy. If we don’t understand their importance and as a result don’t love them (as many don’t seem to right now), then we won’t fight to conserve them (or we may even fight to destroy them).
Which is why dismantling public education, environmental education, and universities, along with adding to the wealth gap and increasing poverty (by creating a global recession for instance), eroding public services and faith in government, undermining expertise and facts, generating fear, creating perceptions of isolation, and fanning culture war flames are tools of minority rule and part of the authoritarian playbook. In varying ways to varying degrees they all disrupt the path from teaching to understanding to loving to caring for and conserving our democracy.
It should be clear to everyone by now, that it’s up to us - we the people - to save our democracy, to restore the path. We have to step up, step outside of our comfort zone, and take some risks to save environmental education, the environment, public education, public health, trans kids, the chance to decarbonize our built environment and the economy, along with so many other things. And we’ll have to come together, forming ever larger coalitions to distribute the risk and amplify our impacts, forming coalitions that span the gamut of demographics, industries, and geography. And I’m going to call out the private sector here to stop keeping your collective heads down, hoping you can ride out the storm. Be brave and help fight for our democracy.
So find some things you’re willing to do or at least try. Find some groups to join. Ask the groups you’re already a member of (including professional organizations) if they’ve thought about helping form larger coalitions. Donate your time or money to non-profits that provide valuable services to your community and state (like your local food bank or even KACEE). Call your members of Congress (or stop by their local offices) - every day - and demand that they do their job. Put similar pressure on your state and local politicians. Write opinion pieces. Help organize. At work and in your community stand up for those being targeted - the trans and larger LGBTQ+ community, federal workers fired for doing their jobs, and people abducted off the streets and held in detention or whisked out of the country without due process by ICE. Stand up for DEI. Protest - peacefully. Take to the streets - peacefully. Celebrate the victories along the way.
Resist. And help restore the path from teaching to understanding to loving to caring for and conserving our democracy.