CREATING CONNECTIONS

Yakona’s Creating Connections is an innovative biodiversity monitoring program centering elementary, secondary, and postsecondary “students as scientists,” providing them with real-world experience in climate and conservation science woven through art, history, language arts and math. Project and place-based instruction helps students learn how to be involved in the solution.
 
Elementary teachers worked hand-in-hand to develop the elementary curriculum. Secondary teachers and administrators are helping to create an Environmental Studies field course for high school students. Community college faculty continue to develop curriculum integrating biology and environmental science courses, with the ultimate goal of creating a non-extractive Natural Resources program of study. These partnerships, coupled with many others, create intentional connections with traditionally marginalized communities, ensuring that educational barriers are lowered or erased.
 
By the end of 2022, we had served 90 students, youth/families and educators through Creating Connections. As of August 2023, we had served 585 people. There is high demand for the work we do at Yakona, and we are grateful for all gifts, large and small, that ensure Yakona’s Creating Connections programming continues.