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Colorado has established a lead role in advancing environmental education across the nation. In 2012, the State Board of Education adopted the Colorado Environmental Education Plan with bipartisan support. The Colorado Environmental Education Leadership Council is responsible for implementing the plan’s strategies. This is the first collaborative group in the nation specifically designed to engage in cross-sector partnerships to advance environmental literacy in Colorado’s PreK-12 schools. The primary objective of this project is to develop a community of practice where Council leaders and environmental education partners are equipped with effective tools for network building, leadership, and communication. Using a suite of online learning tools, this community of practice will allow Council members to share research and best practices in environmental education. This includes telling the story of environmental education in Colorado through multiple media, hosting a series of webinars aimed at professional development in environmental education leadership, and creating a networking space to build a strong infrastructure of partnerships across all Colorado communities.
Hillary Mason is an environmental educator and researcher at the University of Colorado in Denver. She is the Environmental Literacy Coordinator at the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education, a professional organization aimed at advancing environmental literacy by connecting communities with environmental education materials and resources. Hillary is a member of the Colorado Environmental Education Leadership Council, a select team of leaders charged with implementing strategies in the Colorado Environmental Education Plan adopted by the State Board of Education in 2012. Hillary has a master’s degree in Environmental Science and is currently working on her Ph.D. in STEM Education. Her research focuses on environmental identity development and its relationship to science learning across different cultures and communities. Hillary has worked as a middle grades science teacher and is currently a lecturer in the School of Education and Human Development and the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado in Denver. As a fellow in the T3 Accelerator program, she is utilizing a peer-to-peer learning model to develop an online platform for Council members to build capacity and partnerships that will strengthen efforts to provide environmental education in Colorado’s PreK-12 schools.