CEE-Change Fellows 2021

Siya (he/him/his) is currently the founder and director of EcoHealth180 in Uganda, an organization that works to prepare communities for potential disease outbreaks. He’s looking forward to sharing his knowledge in writing and publishing with the rest of the fellows. He brings experience in integrating public health, gender and nutrition within environmental conservation initiatives, environmental education in mountain communities, and engagement of healthcare service providers in environmental education.

Siya would like to travel to the Carpathian Mountains. Some things he likes to do outside of work include braaing (meat roasting) with friends and accompanying it with some good music and a drink. 

Integrating Environmental Education Within Community-based Disease Surveillance System in Mountain Communities of Elgon Region (ECSEMER)

The Project
This project aims to enhance…

CEE-Change Fellow

Cesar (he/him) knows sound and music are necessary catalysts for change. Creative director for Planet Chambo in Chicago, Illinois, he finds energy and rest through his own creative work as a DJ, spending time with family and friends, and sports. He brings interests and knowledge in youth program design, video and audio production, DJing, artist network, and podcast production to the Fellowship. 

Cesar would like to travel to the largest solar plant in Morocco and record local traditions of music in Ecuador.

Dancing for Environmental Justice

The Project
"Dancing for Environmental Justice" aims to eliminate the barriers to inclusive, just, and sustainable access to green spaces across Chicago through transformative artistic performances that feature BIPOC artists. Our team intends to use the CEE mini-grant funding to fund episodes 2 and 3, which will take…

Mandy Sunshine (she/her) brings being a positive-discipline practicing mother of three vibrant boys, meditation/yoga facilitation, and a knowledge of Florida’s subtropical coastal ecosystems to the Fellowship. It’s no surprise then, that she enjoys surfing, biking, and playing outside. 

She harnesses that positive energy in her community action project, which aims to engage communities in deliberative dialogues to reveal the values of a diversity of participants and encourage the co-creation of solutions by those being impacted by local environmental concerns. Her work as a team member of the University of Florida and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University extension collaborative Community Voices, Informed Choices (CIVIC) is focused on creating a toolkit that can be utilized by extension agents to promote in-depth and inclusive community exploration of challenging natural resource issues, such as land use and…

Tower to Table for Food Security, Education, and Sustainability

The Project
This project proposes an innovative gardening idea that uses education to help to address a community environmental issue. Community members (specifically seniors and children) will take part in attending classes and I will teach them about nutrition, healthy living through gardening, and entrepreneurship. As a result of the training they receive, the participants will grow and eat nutritious vegetables and fruits and learn how to sustain themselves financially!

Goal

Serve seniors and children from underserved communities and individuals that live in food deserts with classes and hands on experiences that will help them achieve a more equitable and sustainable future for themselves.

Project Outcomes

• Community members will gain…

Like many environmentalists, Eileen (she/her) finds solace in getting outside. Hiking and bird watching are two of her interests. No agenda? No problem! That’s part of the fun. Eileen would love to visit the Patagonia region of South America one day, but she also loves exploring the wild parts of her home state, Michigan.

Eileen works as the Environmental Education Coordinator for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). She brings with her years of cross-boundary work connecting science and governmental organizations with the public and is excited to share her experience facilitating multi-stakeholder community partnerships with others in the Fellowship. Eileen holds a BS in Environmental Biology from Cornerstone University and MS in Environmental Studies with an Environmental Communication emphasis from Green Mountain College. She’s a veteran public speaker, grant writer, and written word…

Caleb (he/him) is preparing for the future. His work as the executive director of Young Voices For the Planet is all about mentoring and supporting young people to become agents of change in their communities and beyond. He brings experience in development, education, leadership, and media with a whole range of skills within those areas. 

His community action project is youth-focused. Caleb is focused on empowering youth to shape their own future by using their voices, values, perspectives and talents to craft stories of hope and solution for the environmental and climate crises.

“Young Voices For the Planet collaborates with a diverse group of young leaders who've done incredible work in the environmental-civic action sphere, and these young leaders are ready to mentor youth through similar projects and processes of engagement and action. Our core work will be to support community-based youth action projects, and…

In between long-distance running and searching for animal tracks, Laura (she/her) is devoted to building capacity for impactful environmental action through a civic engagement lens. Her work as a professor at the University of Connecticut provides her the opportunity to work with youth-driven to take action in their communities. Laura brings an extensive background in ecological knowledge and research, experience with user-friendly mapping technologies, resources on equity, diversity, and inclusion, and experience developing community action projects. If Laura could travel anywhere in the world she’d visit either a local Connecticut lake, a neotropical rainforest (where she did her PhD research), or the Oaxacan mountains (where her family is from).

Facilitating Teen & Adult Community Environmental Action Projects via Near-peer Mentors & Resources

Read more about Laura's project in "…

Fontoh works to build “eco-kids for the future” by empowering young children to be ambassadors and combat growing environmental challenges.

Fontoh joins the Fellowship from ​​the Crusaders for Environmental Protection and Ozone Watch located in Cameroon. He brings with him an enjoyment of tourism, art and culture, and music concerts. His professional skills include developing community conservation actions, promoting environmental education amongst kids, project writing and management, crowdfunding and fundraising skills, and lastly skills on effective tree planting and bio-monitoring. 

Fontoh hopes to visit any national parks around the world with unique biodiversity qualities. 

He has been inspired by many passion-driven achievers in the field of environmental education. However, his greatest source of inspiration has been Mahatma Gandhi with his purity of heart and the way he emphasized protecting…

If you asked Patti (she/her) what energizes her, there’s no doubt she’d tell you her profession as a middle school teacher is very important to her. But, outside of work, a nice weekend cultivating her garden or relaxing at the beach are also dear. Patti holds years of experience in both formal and nonformal education settings and with a variety of age levels. Where would Patti travel? She’d go to Tibet!

Read more about Patti's project in "Community-Based Science Gives Middle Schoolers a Voice for Education" in our blog series, CEE-Change, Together.
 

Groveton Passion Projects

The Project
The funds from this mini-grant will be used to provide students with an introduction to civic engagement through two…

Music focuses and motivates Carolin (she/her). Cycling through nature energizes and activates her. Developing and providing access to safe water pushes her every day. Carolin’s community action project aims to be an intercultural and intergenerational exchange of ideas all relating to water quality, access, and sustainable solutions to ensure everyone has access to safe water. 

Currently, Carolin works and studies in the Netherlands. She is pursuing her masters in Environmental Sciences (M.Sc.) at Wageningen University & Research with a focus on Water Systems and Global Change. If there were three natural wonders that stand out, they are the aurora borealis, tropical rainforests, and the deep sea. Until she can travel to all those places, she’s exploring every inch of the Netherlands. 

Among the many skills Carolin brings to the fellowship are knowledge in environmental and sustainability sciences…

Aubrae (she/her) serves as the director of the Woodland Pond School in Bangor, Maine. She brings a lot of business operations, organizational, non-profit management, and process improvement experience and she’s willing to share it all with the fellows in the program! Her community action project has two prongs. One, build a series of CEUs for Maine educators to help them add project-based, nature-based learning projects to their curricula. Two, outreach to families in Maine about why nature-based, project-based learning is a great option, and how to advocate for more within their community schools.

Aubrae is always seeking her next adventure. She likes to spend time hanging out with friends and family, exploring Maine, eating good food and overthinking attributes to include in her bio.

Read more about Aubrae's project in "…

Mycelium Healing Project

Restorative Healing and Justice
In the Northeast Denver Metropolitan area, the constituents are primarily made up of BIPOC marginalized communities that live in the most polluted zip code in Colorado and face daily health and financial impacts from living with devastating air pollution as well as water and soil contamination. These "disproportionately impacted community" (DIC) have been neglected and abused by major corporations like fossil fuel giant and #1 polluter in the state Suncor Oil Refinery. In addition to Spirit of the Sun’s youth services, elder care and small climate and social justice policy education work, we believe as Indigenous leaders and organizers that our people need restorative healing and justice to step out more boldly and engage more broadly on climate and environmental public policy issues in government venues.

The Project…

Erica Hall, M.S. CED, MBA, ARM, has a multi-disciplinary background as a community economic development practitioner, community organizer, environmental justice advocate, Board member, Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) facilitator/trainer/consultant, and Senior Legal Professional with interests in intersectional environmentalism exploring the connection between sustainability, resiliency, food waste, climate change, food insecurity, the built form and placemaking, economic resilience, racial, social justice and equity, housing diversity, and affordability. Erica is currently the Board Chair/Executive Director of the Florida Food Policy Council; a statewide food policy council working to explore and address gaps in the food system in Florida. Erica is also Executive Committee Vice-Chair of the Suncoast Sierra Club, on the Chapter’s JEDI Committee and has created a JEDI Taskforce within the Suncoast Group to lead the…

Jenna (Hoover) Cobb (she/her) is passionate about facilitating spaces to cultivate a relationship with nature and engaging youth in academic, advocacy, and faith-based settings to seek community transformation together. She is currently located on unceded Tongva land in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California in the United States. As a Program Educator at the Chino Basin Water Conservation District and a former youth pastor, Jenna is excited about incorporating spirituality, Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and civics in environmental education.

Read more about Jenna's project in "Adapting Formal Education Curriculum to Fit a Nonformal Setting" in our blog series, CEE-Change, Together.

She is also part of NAAEE’s 2021-22 CEE-…

A lover of music, nature, and adventure Justin (he/him) is excited to share skills in wildlife and restoration ecology, project and place based learning, curriculum design, and techniques to connect people with the natural world with all those in the Fellowship. A teacher hailing from Suffield, Connecticut, naming just one place he’d like to travel proved challenging. Some of the possibilities include watching grey whales in Mexico or scuba diving through the Great Barrier Reef. 

An avid mountain biker, traveler, and outdoor enthusiast, adventure is always around the corner for Justin. That said, simply spending time with Mother Nature or with his guitar also energizes him. 

Read more about Justin's project in "Students and Teachers Find Inspiration in Leading Their…

Shougat (she/her) is committed to sustainable development as she works on building sustainable communities and advocates for it globally. Her experience in the field as Advisor & Environmental Specialist at ICSA, Climate Ambassador at Global Youth Climate Network (GYCN), Global Schools Advocate at United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN SDSN), United Nations Young Leader for Sustainable Development Goals, Young Ambassador at ‘The Earth Project’, Founder & COO at ORGASUS, Chairperson at H. A. Foundation, Founder at H. A. Digital School & College brings sustainability and education into the same sphere. 

Similarly, her community action project demonstrates her commitment to ensuring the quality of life for those in her community stands the test of time. During her CEE-Change Fellowship journey, she would like to design, develop and launch Solar Photovoltaic (PV) operated environmentally…

Matt (he/him) loves museums. So much, that his Community Action Project aims to create a Community of Practice comprising museum professionals eager to radically transform the way museums approach environmental education. Together he and his colleagues will assess how the museum field is doing and where it needs to go to foster a more environmentally literate museum audience. 

Interpretation and design are important to Matt—he loves organized and beautiful exhibitions and envisions that museum exhibits will be a particular focus of the Community Action Project. Matt would love to travel to the Galapagos Islands. In his time outside of work he enjoys hiking and paddling. 

Benchmarks for Environmental Literacy in Museums

The Project
I am intending to work in partnership with museum professionals across the United States to develop and disseminate a suite of…

Sandra (she/her) surrounds herself with plants. Not only is she an avid gardener, but she enjoys guiding others in the process of starting their own home gardens. Sandra Luna is an educator, photographer, social entrepreneur, world traveler, gardener, school garden advocate, food justice advocate, and environmentalist living in Los Angeles. She is an immigrant from Guatemala and she grew up in Pico Union/Mid City. 

She has taught and managed various horticulture programs at various inner city high schools in Los Angeles for the last 15 years. She is currently the garden educator at two elementary schools in North East LA through a partnership with Occidental College and Sprouts.  

The plant love continues through her passions of hiking in national and local parks, and taking photographs of nature. 

Sandra’s community action project will be part of an effort in Northeast LA to green this community…

When Judith is passionate about something, she dives in headfirst. Whether she’s working on conservation projects at the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, or traveling the globe to find great diving locations, or developing her community action project, Judith is committed to being a voice for the environment.

Two places Judith would like to visit are Iceland and the Patagonia glaciers.

Read more about Judith's project in "Parley for the Oceans: Fighting Marine and Coastal Plastic Pollution" in our blog series, CEE-Change, Together.

Plastic Pollution Awareness Program

The Project
The Plastic Pollution Awareness is an ongoing program that has been implemented since 2019 by Parley for the Oceans in Mexico. The program is…

Kevin joins the Fellowship from Calgary, Alberta. The skills he brings to the Fellowship are community partnership development and teacher education. Establishing partnerships between and within communities is a skill he intends to capitalize on throughout the duration of the Fellowship. 

Activities that energize Kevin include sea kayaking and canoeing, and skiing (telemark and skijoring). A place he’d like to visit is Glacier Bay, Alaska. 

Keepers of our Place: Community Environmental Monitoring Project

The Project
This community action project will include three distinct communities that neighbor each other in the southwest region of the city of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They are: Connect Charter School, Tsuut’ina First Nation Band Middle School, Mount Royal University-Department of Education. A recent developing major transportation route (‘ring road’),…

Angela (she/her) is a 7th grade science and social studies teacher who solves mysteries. Whether she’s tracking down the prize while geocaching or working with her students to audit food waste in their cafeteria, she knows there’s always something new to discover. 

Organization: 
Prairie View Middle School 
Sun Prairie, WI

Read more about Angela's project in "Food Waste Reduction Program Inspires Middle Schoolers to Engage" in our blog series, CEE-Change, Together.

 

Community Action Project:
My CEE Change fellowship project involved my students analyzing and taking ownership of the food waste systems within our school. Students collected pre- and post-data on the amount of…

Natasha (she/her) chases mountains—no plans, just her and the wildlife that live on them. She enjoys hiking and being with people who feel a connection to nature. It’s no surprise she’d travel to any forest path hidden in an urban landscape that has the sights, smells and sounds of being transported away—think any of the green spaces in Alberta, British Columbia, Texas, Indiana, New York or Washington. She’s also been spotted in rural paddy fields in Eastern India, among Zen gardens in Japan, ancient caves in New Zealand and even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!

The Four Directions Healing Garden Project

The Project
This student-led project is to design and implement a sustainable garden/healing space with Alberta native plant species in consultation with traditional Indigenous Elders from our community. Medicines and sacred plants such as Cedar, Tobacco, Sage and…

Melanie (she/her) has an extensive history employing a social justice lens to projects and is especially interested in migration and the environment. Through dialogic learning and hands-on workshops, local funds of knowledge will be surfaced to create a living knowledge base.  

Melanie enjoys papermaking, photography, songwriting, and is an amateur entomologist.  If she could travel anywhere in the world she’d visit Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. She brings JEDI, project design, action research, and conscious leadership skills to her work.

Read more about Melanie's project in "Neighbor2Neighbor: A Community Action Research Project to Scaffold Transitions Towards Sustainability" in our blog series, CEE-Change, Together.

…

David (he/him/co) is a sustainability, communications and community learning professional  whose work in policy, science journalism, education and public health focuses on the prospects for scaling participatory, multi-sectoral, whole systems transitions.

David’s CEE community action project, Neighbor2Neighbor, focuses on the power and limits of dialogue and storytelling between neighbors and their community institutions. Starting with basic questions about community and institutional relationships, the project’s civic engagement with neighbors, leaders and experts in diverse communities will document emergent cultural and institutional sustainability action/learning strategies. What happens when residents convert lawns to gardens, when neighbors commit to share community solar, or parks become food forests? What can community institutions do to support rather than impede the creation of new,…

Kimi Waite's research and professional praxis is situated in the intersections of environmental education, geography, critical pedagogy, and social studies. She is passionate about inspiring and leading PK-12 students and teachers to take local action for global environmental change.

CEE-Change Fellow

Olivia Walton (she/her), brings her mission as an educator to this fellowship: "to foster a passion for celebrating and protecting the natural world through interdisciplinary, exploratory, and inspirational opportunities for kids of all ages and backgrounds; particularly the most underrepresented and at-risk members of our global community." Olivia’s experiences of creating equitable and engaging environmental education (EE) content and connecting with communities in a culturally respectful and relevant way will be integral for a project prioritizing both civics and environmental education.

In her time outside of work, Olivia loves cooking—mostly Italian food because she’s half Italian—and enjoys reading Tarot Cards. If Olivia could travel to any place in the world, she’d travel to Caño Cristales, nature's rainbow river!

Sustainable Food for Freedom City

…

Danny (he/him), environmental education coordinator for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG), knows the value of local government engaging with residents. He has a strong understanding of how city and state governments work, and knows how environmental education can meet the goals of those entities. Danny has previously served on the board of directors of his state affiliate, the Kentucky Association for Environmental Education, and currently serves as the Chair of the LFUCG Environmental Commission. His passion for environmental education first started when he was overseeing waste education outreach to his fellow undergraduate students in college.

Danny enjoys kayaking and hiking with friends. He’d love to one day scuba dive along the coral reefs off the northern coast of Honduras, the country where his mother’s family is from.

Read more about Danny's project in "…

Graduate student Lisa (she/they) of Seattle, Washington, welcomes good news. More importantly, she creates it. No obstacles are too high (or too deep) for Lisa—she’d visit the Mariana Trench if she had the opportunity. Aside from her interest in exploring the deep sea, she loves  hiking, riding her bike, and learning dry-land mushing with her husky Loki—yes, that’s a real thing! 

She’s currently pursuing a second master’s degree through Miami University’s Project Dragonfly and brings with her a breadth of skills and experience including  in program and project management, consulting, and applied improvisation, all of which she is excited to share with the rest of the fellows. 

Lisa’s mission is to broaden the community of people talking about climate change, especially through the arts. She believes that when we diversity when, where and how we talk about climate, we create new pathways to civic…

Zee (they/them) is a Program Coordinator at Community Nature Connection, a non-profit that focuses on increasing access to the outdoors for communities most impacted by racial, socio-economic, and disability injustices.

Outside of work, Zee leads Rootin’ 4 Us, a land-based collective where they empower communities through land liberation, community food networks, and ancestral knowledge and practices. Drawing inspiration from Fannie Lou Hamer and many other Black radical ancestors, Zee brings 10 years of community organizing and popular political education, alongside their profound commitment to reciprocal healing between soil and self.

Zee heads into nature as often as they can. This interest lends itself easily to birding, hiking, and nature journaling—a few activities that energize Zee. At a young age, Zee’s interest in growing food stemmed from their grandma tending to her fruit trees in South Central LA. Now, Zee…