Individualism, a core value of the United States, often emphasizes competition over collaboration. However, in the context of environmental education (EE), collaboration can support the mission of the EE movement. The Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE) created the Colorado Environmental Education Master Plan (CEEMP), which proposed seven goals to unify and guide the direction of EE in Colorado. Collaboration, the first goal of the CEEMP, highlights the importance of effective partnerships between EE providers. This goal instructs EE providers to pursue new relationships with other EE providers, their communities, organizations, and individuals. Enhancing these relationships can result in the unification of EE providers with their goals and increase awareness of current EE efforts. This essay reviews how the mission statements of Colorado College (CC), the Catamount Center, and Columbine Elementary School are enhanced through their partnerships with the TREE Semester and then proposes a new partnership between the TREE Semester and Ecoinclusive.
The TREE Semester is an intensive EE program offered to undergraduate students through the CC Education Department. CC’s mission is to provide a liberal arts education that uses adventure to inspire the imagination and intellect needed for leadership and lifelong learning. The values of adventure, imagination, intellect, leadership, and love of learning outlined in CC’s mission are core skills developed during the TREE Semester. The TREE Semester supports CC’s emphasis on adventure through place-based learning and opportunities to create and teach a flexible curriculum. TREE Semester students (TREE stewards) spend time learning about the place they temporarily call home. Place-based learning provides many opportunities to integrate adventure into the undergraduate curriculum. For example, TREE stewards performed three place-based experiments that assessed the health of both lakes located on the Catamount Mountain Campus. During these experiments, students could explore the lakes, canoe, and study lake macroinvertebrates. Integrating adventure into the lake health unit challenged and ultimately advanced students' imagination and ecological intelligence. Often, place-based learning fosters an appreciation or sense of wonder for one's environment. This sense of wonder supports CC's mission to integrate adventure into a liberal arts education.
TREE stewards are also required to create and teach EE lessons to 5th grade and high school students. In both teaching opportunities, stewards have a great deal of independence deciding the content and methods of their lessons. This adventurous teaching practice pushes stewards to experiment with and learn about EE through their successes and failures. Ultimately, this teaching experience provides space for stewards to develop the leadership skills needed to become effective educators. Extensive writing practice and development opportunities align the TREE Semester with CC's mission to develop intellect and create lifelong learners.
Columbine Elementary School is one of three public K-5 schools in Woodland Park, Colorado. The TREE Semester partners with Columbine to provide EE experiences to 5th-grade students and teaching opportunities to CC students. The mission of Columbine Elementary School is to foster intellectual, emotional, and social growth in all children. Columbine students take weekly field trips to the TREE Semester campus and receive 75% of their science curriculum from TREE stewards in outdoor learning school (OLS) through weekly five-hour visits. During OLS, the 5th-grade students have the opportunity for intellectual growth through EE lessons. More independence and responsibility are given to students to foster both emotional and social growth. Although, the curriculum content may vary widely among teachers, all lessons focus on inquiry and the scientific method. Therefore, all 5th-grade students should develop their ability to ask questions from observations and practice using the scientific method. OLS aims to foster a curiosity of the natural world that drives the 5th-graders to question and learn about their environment. The activities done with the 5th-graders at OLS require them to handle new responsibilities and gain independence. For example, in one lesson, students spent part of their afternoon working on a trail restoration project. The project allowed students to design ideas for trail restoration and largely self-govern the execution of their ideas. This activity exemplifies the responsibility given to students, which provided a space for emotional and social skill development.
The TREE Semester is located at Catamount Center’s Catamount Mountain Campus outside of Woodland Park, Colorado. The primary use of the 177-acre campus is to promote educational and ecological values. The Catamount Center aims to develop ecological stewardship through the creation of meaningful connections to the natural world. The TREE Semester provides opportunities for high school students from Tesla (a public school in Colorado Springs), Columbine students, and TREE stewards to connect with the natural world and develop a sense of responsibility in caring for the environment. Tesla students come to the Catamount Mountain Campus for a 4–5-hour lesson. The main goal of this lesson is to give the students time to connect with the place and develop personal motivations to respect their environment.
Similarly, Columbine students have even more opportunities to learn with Catamount as their classroom during OLS. One primary goal of OLS is for students to create a personal connection to the land at the Catamount Mountain Campus through mindfulness and educational activities. Finally, stewards live at and learn about the Catamount Mountain Campus for a full semester. During this time, TREE stewards connect with the land in a multitude of ways. Housing TREE stewards and providing K-12 students with access to the Catamount Mountain Campus allows the TREE Semester to support the Catamount Center’s mission of creating meaningful connections to the land. Those connections are a starting point to develop an ethic of care for the environment for all students.
The TREE Semester has many more partnerships that support the program in various ways. TREE would benefit from one or more new partnerships that focus on increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Ecoinclusive is an organization that provides DEI trainings and resources to environmental organizations. The mission of Ecoinclusive is to provide organizations and communities with support to create a healthy and diverse environment. One training, titled “environmental justice and a legacy of racism” is most aligned with the objectives of the TREE Semester. In this proposed partnership, Ecoinclusive would help the TREE Semester adopt more practices that it teaches. In class, TREE stewards learn about culturally relevant pedagogy, including critical theories that address racism, sexism, and classism. Ecoinclusive could help further embedded this pedagogy into the program's structure. The TREE Semester is beginning to include more diverse guest speakers and sources of information but is still deeply rooted in the white, wealthy institutions of academia. A partnership with Ecoinclusive would help create a culturally competent community position to support the diverse students we teach. In return, the TREE Semester would financially compensate Ecoinclusive for their resources. If the partnership is a success, the TREE Semester would also refer the services of Ecoinclusive to other EE providers in need of DEI trainings. This partnership would support the mission of Ecoinclusive by creating a healthier and more diverse environment at the TREE Semester.
Partnerships can take a variety of forms. The proposed and existing partnerships with the TREE Semester vary in structure, but all support the missions of each organization. For example, the TREE semester embodies Colorado College's mission to embrace adventure. OLS exposes students from Columbine Elementary School to many new ideas that hopefully guide their intellectual, social, and emotional development. At the TREE Semester, there are many opportunities for students to make meaningful connections and become ecological stewards contributing to Catamount Center’s mission. Finally, a partnership with Ecoinclusive would give TREE the support and resources to become a more culturally competent community. These partnerships between various EE providers increase communication and collaboration. More collaboration will lead to a unified vision for environmental education among these diverse organizations.