Wild Things 2025

We’re most familiar with ‘VIP’ standing for ‘very important person’. The ‘P’ in VIP can also stand for places, phenomena, project, or passion. During this session you will explore your own Climate VIP and come away with tools to help people view the climate crisis as something that affects them directly. After identifying their Climate VIP, people can begin the conversation about how each individual already possesses the interests and skills needed to take climate and environmental justice action regardless of age, prior knowledge, or background.

The topic of native plants in early childhood and youth education is vital and often overlooked. Discover practical strategies for integrating local flora and fauna into the classroom and at home, fostering a deeper connection to nature. We'll share hands-on, age-appropriate activities designed to spark curiosity and teach children of all ages about biodiversity and ecosystem health. Leave equipped with simple, creative ideas to make nature education interactive and impactful. Together, with hands dirty and hearts full, we can inspire the next generation of environmental stewards.

You’ll see in the award-winning short film Watershed Warriors, Friends of the Fox River builds a watershed community of caretakers focusing on youth education; their unique niche is hosting students in local streams to discover its abundant life, collect data, and foster stewardship. Their annual It’s Our Fox River Day, covers the 200-mile watershed featuring over 50 events, including numerous municipalities and partners, involving over 1000 participants. Extensive outreach education, cleanups, celebrations, and advocacy fill their calendar. Friends of the Fox River serves as an inspirational model for individuals like you and your organizations to give your watershed a voice.

One of the driving goals of the Nature Museum TEENS program is to support science identity, agency, and sense of belonging. The summer program is a 6-week, paid internship that engages 30 Chicago high school students in lab- and field-based activities focused on urban ecology. During the first 3 weeks of the program, teens learn field methods, develop questions, and identify interest areas by contributing to existing Nature Museum projects and participatory science projects, such as iNaturalist, eBird, Caterpillars Count, and Squirrel-Net. In the final 3 weeks of the program, teens work in small groups to develop and carry out field investigations based on shared interests. Their projects are designed in a participatory science and open science model, utilizing low or no cost materials, clear protocols, and ways for the public to contribute. Teens collaboratively develop their own research questions, design protocols and shareable mobile data collection forms, collect and analyze field-based data, post findings on self-created project websites, and share their work at a final project showcase open to the general public. Another unique aspect of the program is that participants learn how to collect and preserve plant and invertebrate specimens, which are incorporated into the museum’s scientific and teaching collections. Participants consistently report feeling connected to a larger community and that they are contributing to something larger than themselves. Additionally, the teen-created projects and public showcase serve to increase participants’ science identity and agency.

In April 2024, the TEENS program became one of six out-of-school time, pre-college STEM programs in the country to earn the first-of-its kind accreditation from Middle States Association Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools (MSA-CESS). The accreditation elevates the critical learning and skills development provided by the TEENS program, promoting equity by increasing the value of these experiences in the higher education admissions process. The accreditation was facilitated through the STEM PUSH Network, an NSF INCLUDES Alliance working to leverage the power of pre-college STEM programs to broaden participation of underrepresented students in STEM.

This session will highlight the program’s pedagogical approaches, including successes and challenges. Presenters will share the program progression through the lens of program participants, sharing teen experiences, participant outcomes, and teen-created projects.

Opportunities to experience camp and nature play should be accessible for all children. Brookfield Zoo Chicago’s Camp program and the Hamill Family Play Zoo welcome children with various cognitive and physical disabilities by creating inclusive experiences based on universal design. Zoo staff share their insight around utilizing specific tools and strategies to best support this and allow children of all abilities to connect to, care for, and conserve nature.

This session explores students using various biodiversity tools to capture and contribute to a yearly inventory of the school campus flora and fauna. 111 AP Environmental Science students pitched ideas on the best ways to inform the public about biodiversity data and decided to co-create a publicly accessible Tree Campus digital zine.

In November 2023, spurred by the question of a 5th grade student, the Prairie School of DuPage began a journey that linked civics and science. After studying state symbols, the entire Upper Elementary class began the rigorous process of ensuring Illinois could designate an Illinois state mushroom species. Through the process of gathering qualitative and quantitative data and working with local state legislatures, students decided to advocate for the Giant puffball. Learn how students made history ensuring that SB3514 passed into law in August 2024.

Fungi are among the most diverse and ecological important group of organisms on earth.  They also directly benefit people as food, sources of medicines, etc. Unfortunately, they are not immune to the threats that put species of animals and plants at risk including habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, loss of symbiotic hosts, pollution, over exploitation, and climate change. Yet, efforts to conserve them lag far behind actions on animals and plants.  Progress is being made, but there is much work yet to be done.  Because fungal diversity and distributions are still poorly documented, there is great opportunity for discovery.  Thus, community scientists can make significant contributions. There is a long history of amateur mycologists and other field naturalists contributing important data, but for the most part, their efforts have not been coordinated, and the results of their findings were often not captured.  While websites like iNaturalist and Mushroom Observer now provide a platform to capture observation data, the information on these sites are for the most part random observations, and efforts are not coordinated to target gaps in knowledge on species of interest. Several recent initiatives are addressing these issues and are providing individuals with the opportunity to make meaningful contributions to efforts focused on documenting fungal diversity and their conservation.

Preschoolers have all that it takes to become agents of positive change. Come find out ways to encourage stewardship through emergent and organic moments in drop-in and drop-off programming for young children.