By Monica Macoubrie and Jamie Bachmann
A
s modern society takes a hold on us, we become less
connected to the natural diversity of our great state.
It seems that Nebraska students are more connected
to the wildlife of faraway places they see on television or
their tablets than what is right outside their backdoors. How
many times have your kids seen a polar bear, Siberian tiger
or African elephant out of the kitchen window? Instead, you
are more likely to see a goldfinch, kangaroo rat or even a
garter snake. Students should learn about this wildlife, too.
A prescription for this lost sense of place for our state's
students is to arm their educators with the tools they need to
immerse their classrooms in outdoor Nebraska. Using this as
a focus, the Legacy in Environmental Education Discovery
(LEED) educator workshop was launched.
This free, two-day intensive educator workshop happens
annually at a different or biologically unique landscape
(BUL) across Nebraska. A biologically unique landscape
is an area that has a large array of biological diversity in
Nebraska. These landscapes are selected based on known
occurrences of natural communities and at-risk species.
CONNECTING TO NATURE
PHOTOS
BY
JULIE
GEISER
64 NEBRASKAland • MAY 2017
Legacy in Environmental Education
T.J. Walker, left, discusses plant life with teachers at a LEED workshop at Chester Island Wildlife Management Area south of Brady.
