Environmental Education and Assessment
When I began my doctoral studies in 1996, I was interested in studying children’s sense of place as a way to broaden the environmental education discourse, from a predominantly white, Eurocentric, upper middle class lens, to one that was more inclusive of diverse classes and cultures. I chose to work with three communities in northern New Mexico which represented a range of social, cultural, and economic contexts in which children were raised, and to extend this research to the parents and grandparents of my case study children. After completing my Ph.D. in 2001, I returned to New Mexico to facilitate community-based participatory research that could integrate cultural and community values into research practices that would contribute to improved livelihoods of Southwest tribal and Spanish land grant communities. For most of my career, I have worked at this interface to bridge community and education, research and practice, and to amplify the importance of diverse cultures in the application of science. Much of this work was through my practice Crane Collaborations and through collaborations with schools.
When I began my doctoral studies in 1996, I was interested in studying children’s sense of place as a way to broaden the environmental education discourse, from a predominantly white, Eurocentric, upper middle class lens, to one that was more inclusive of diverse classes and cultures. I chose to work with three communities in northern New Mexico which represented a range of social, cultural, and economic contexts in which children were raised, and to extend this research to the parents and grandparents of my case study children. After completing my Ph.D. in 2001, I returned to New Mexico to facilitate community-based participatory research that could integrate cultural and community values into research practices that would contribute to improved livelihoods of Southwest tribal and Spanish land grant communities. For most of my career, I have worked at this interface to bridge community and education, research and practice, and to amplify the importance of diverse cultures in the application of science. Much of this work was through my practice Crane Collaborations and through collaborations with schools.
