The conference will take place at the Cache Valley Center for the Arts Bullen Center, downtown Logan, April 7, 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., and April 8, 8:30 A.M. to 1:30 P.M.  Saturday, April 8, will also include 3 options for outdoor field trips 1:30 to 4:30 P.M. Keynote Speakers include Bora Simmons, Senior Research Associate and Director of the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education, Institute for a Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon, and Dan MacNulty, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Wildland Resources, USU. Featured speakers include Chris Luecke, Dean of the Quinney College of Natural Resources, USU, and Shaun Dustin, Mayor of Nibley.

“We are really trying to broaden the idea of what fits under the environmental education or EE umbrella. This year we have strands that include citizen science, sustainable practices and Utah Green Schools. If you’re doing outreach in your community that encourages appreciation of the natural environment or sustainability, then we want you to feel that this conference is for you too,” says Jackie Lowry, Programs Manager at USEE.

We feel that 23 years is too long for the conference to come to Logan, and we intend on making Cache Valley one of our regularly recurring locations going forward. There is a lot of support in the area for environmental education and we want to continue to build on that support and strengthen relationships. There is a great deal of opportunity for meaningful partnerships and collaborations.

The Annual Utah Conference includes the presentation of statewide awards for Environmental Education. The categories include: Environmental Educator, Environmental Education Program, Environmental Education Business (those businesses that either provide EE, support EE and/or are exemplary models of sustainability in the community), and Environmental Education Volunteer of the Year. The awards will be presented during an Awards Luncheon on Friday, April 7.

A pre-conference workshop, Guidelines for Excellence: Best Practices in EE will be led by one of our conference keynote speakers, Bora Simmons. The workshop will be on Thursday, April 6, at Logan City Hall. This workshop is open to the public. Registration is $35. For more information and to register for the workshop, go to http://usee.org/events/annualconference.

About the Utah Society for Environmental Education
The Utah Society for Environmental Education (USEE), a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, and has been a statewide leader in promoting high quality environmental education in Utah since 1981. USEE encourages environmental literacy by teaching Utahns how to think, not what to think, about the environment.