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CE: Engaging Our Natural Awareness: A Model for Education

Monday, April 24, 2023Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Hitchcock Nature Center 27792 Ski Hill Loop Honey Creek, IA. 51542

Are you interested in learning ways to make your environmental education programming more engaging, more inspiring, more impactful? If so, we have a special opportunity for you:

Pottawattamie Conservation is bringing nationally recognized instructor and naturalist, Dave “Muskrat” Muska, to Hitchcock Nature Center for a spring environmental educator training.

Engaging Our Natural Awareness: A Model for Education

April 24th, 25th, & 26th
at Hitchcock Nature Center

In this 3-day experiential training, you will learn skills and techniques to further your ability to inspire and engage participants of all ages with the natural world. Dave will share tools and techniques that he has personally gathered over the course of his career as a naturalist, educator, and program director. Many of these tools are driven by research in human psychology, biology, elementary education, and anthropology.

Topics covered include the following:

• Teaching Methods
• The Art of Mindfulness
• The Art of Storytelling
• The Art of Observation
• Lesson Planning
• Fire: A Tool for Teaching
• Carving: Long Running Projects and Focus
• Mycology for All Ages
• And so much more!

Dave studied Environmental Biology at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY. Dave is a Wilderness Skills Instructor, Naturalist, and Licensed Outdoor Guide and founder of Ondatra Adventures, an endeavor devoted to providing people with a deeper connection to the natural world through educational programs, guided hikes, and excursions. Dave works with children and adults to develop meaningful and personal relationships with the natural world and its fellow organisms and is a Teacher-Naturalist at the North Branch Nature Center. He has over twenty years of experience teaching ancestral skills to students of all ages.

Registration for all three days is $150. Early registration and scholarships are available for IAN members.

This event will take place at Hitchcock Nature Center 27792 Ski Hill Loop Honey Creek IA. Free tent camping is available for registrants on site. Several primitive cabins are also available to rent and additional lodging options are available in nearby Council Bluffs, IA and Missouri Valley, IA.

For questions not answered here or online, email environmental.education@pottcounty-ia.gov. or call 712-242-1189.

Contact Info
712-242-1189
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