Puzzle-Solving EE Conference in San Antonio in September

0 Comments | Environmental Insider News, June 29, 2002

For the first time in five years, the Texas Environmental Education Partnership (which was actually created during the April 1997 conference that was the brainchild of this reporter) will hold a statewide conference with speakers, workshops, and field trips galore. The site will be the Holiday Inn Riverwalk in San Antonio - the dates are September 12-14, 2002 - and the event is dubbed, "Putting the Pieces of the Texas Environmental Education Puzzle Together."

The conference sponsor list includes the Texas Farm Bureau, Texas Forestry Association, Exxon Mobil, Shell Oil Products US, San Antonio Water System, Magnolia Trust Foundation, Richardson Environmental Action League, EPA Region 6, and the Environmental Institute of Houston (at the University of Houston, Clear Lake). Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and The University of Texas at Austin, Environmental Science Institute, are conference partners.

Keynote speeches will be given on Thursday evening (September 12) by Walt Dabney of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Terri Morgan of the Christian Life Commission, Baptist General Convention of Texas, The Honorable Warren Chisum, chair of the House Committee on Environmental Regulation, Richard L. "Dick" White, former Vice President for Environmental Services, TU Services, and Bora Simmons, Ph.D., Northern Illinois University professor of environmental education.

Dabney, formerly the chief ranger for the National Park Service, is currently the director of the State Parks Division. The San Antonio native and Texas A & M University graduate was one of the founding members of the Association of National Park Rangers. He once led a team that created a back-ountry management plan to regulate hikers and vehicles in fragile areas of Canyonlands National Park, banning 4-wheel drive vehicles from one area and prohibiting personal watercraft from using portions of the Colorado and Green Rivers within park boundaries.

Morgan, who holds degrees from the University of Texas and Vanderbilt University and completed theological studies at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, is a Baptist minister who serves as Special Projects and Environmental Justice Coordinator for the Commission. She is also president of the nonprofit corporation Partnership for the Environment, a partner in the National Evangelical Environmental Network and an executive board member of Texas Baptists Committed.

Chisum, who has served in the Texas Legislature since 1988, is a founding member and president of the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute, a nonprofit entity that acts as a source of legislative policy information for the public. He is also past chairman of the American Legislative Exchange Council's task force on energy, environment, natural resources, and agriculture, and is currently vice chair of the Energy and Environment Committee for the Southern Legislative Conference.

White, who holds a B.S. in zoology from Southwest Texas State University, joined the Texas Utilities (TXU, or TU, in different years) as manager of environmental services for its mine-mouth generating stations, where he was responsible for developing and implementing an environmental program for both the mining and power generation functions. He also helped create the company's innovative environmental research program, initiated in 1971, which utilizes graduate students for its investigations and the academic community for its direction. After his retirement in 1999, he served as a consultant to the Environment Division of the Electric Power Research Institute. In 1997, the Texas Regional Collaborative for Excellence in Science Teaching presented White with a special award for fostering environmental education.

Dr. Simmons serves as the director of the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education and is the past president of the North American Association for Environmental Education. She has been one of the key leaders in the environmental education movement for the past three decades.

Of special importance (well, not really, but we have to plug what we do) is an early Friday presentation by Environmental Insider publisher Duggan Flanakin, who will speak on,"The 2001 Science/Environmental Science Textbook Adoption: Lessons Learned." Flanakin reviewed grades 6, 7, and 8 science textbooks from four publishers and high school environmental systems textbooks by five publishers for the November 2001 textbook adoption by the State Board of Education. He was both praised and damned for his efforts, which were sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation. But the record shows that Flanakin's work was generally accepted by publishers and that his work may have been instrumental to the Board's approval of all but one of the textbooks submitted for adoption last year.

Field trips will include one to Government Canyon, the San Jose Mission tour, the San Antonio River tour, and a "behind the scenes at Sea World" tour. Cost for the event is $100 (but just $30 for teachers), plus $10 for each tour. For details or to register, contact the Environmental Institute of Houston, (281) 283-3950 - or visit their website at www.eih.uh.edu.