2025 Arkansas Environmental & Outdoor Education Conference

Join a Park Interpreter to explore the visitor center and get a look at some of the fish and turtle species that call Lake Dardanelle home. After exploring the center, we will get our feet wet and discover what all lives in the lake besides fish and turtles? We will seine for macro-invertebrates and see who is living in the lake. By identifying the macro-invertebrate population of the lake and counting your sample size, you can determine the health of the aquatic environment surrounding them. This activity can be modified for kindergarten to college age students. Come prepared to get wet and wear water shoes.

Forest Bathing is an immersive experience designed to help deepen the connection to your surroundings through your senses. Participants will be given various “invitations”, or prompts, to help facilitate this connection. During invitations we wander independently, then we come back together as a group between invitations. We then end with a tea gathering. This practice is designed to foster deep ways of “knowing” the earth. Instead of naming plants and animals we’re more concerned with who they are. The benefits of the practice include lower blood pressure, easier emotion regulation, and reduced stress among many others. Forest Bathing helps to connect humans to the land and each other. We protect what we love.
Target audience: Classroom teachers, PreK-higher education, School administrators, Non-formal educators, Program directors

This session will have a classroom component and a field tour. The classroom session will focus on native plant gardens (smaller plots with individual plants in a structured format) and native plant meadows (larger, randomly planted wildflowers, often interspersed with native grasses) and Q & A. Participants will then carpool to Dardanelle Lock and Dam (Old Post Park-Russellville side of the Arkansas River, about 10 minutes drive). Arkansas Master Naturalists planted about 300 potted plants and broadcast more than 7 million seeds on the site in. Resources will include multiple native plant nurseries in our region and native plant seed sources. Participants will go through the steps of preparation and planting and discuss the biodiversity implications of native plants. Target audience: Classroom teachers, 3-5 grade, Classroom teachers, 6-8 grade, Classroom teachers, 9-12 grade, Non-formal educators

This session has two parts beginning with an indoor presentation on trail safety considerations for outdoor education. What are safety concerns when taking students on trails?  We all want our outdoor education experiences to be safe. This session will examine ways educators can help keep your students safe and ready to head out onto the trail. What equipment can be useful?  What knowledge can help the educators and students?

For the second part of the session, participants will carpool to Pine Knob Mountain Bike Park. This park was built in collaboration with Russellville Recreation & Parks Dept and the River Valley Ozark Off-Road Cycling Club (RVOORC). Now ATU Tourism students have used this park as an outdoor classroom for trail management. How would you use similar spaces for your students? In the event of inclement weather the outdoor portion will be canceled.

Target audience: Classroom teachers, PreK-higher education, School administrators, Non-formal educators, Program directors