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Author: Mara Spears, CEP Project Specialist Staff, Elana Burns, Communications Content Student Assistant

From Groundswell to You

   Summer Institute: Last Call to Register

   Save the Date: PLOs for 2025-2026

   Great Lakes PBE Institute 

   Register for Summer Institute

Friends of Groundswell

   Connect to Professionals Via the Native Plant Guild

   Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival Is Here!

   Indigenous Sources and Resources for Teaching

   Outdoor Discovery Center Education Network

This year's theme is watershed stewardship!

There are only a few days left to register for this immersive place-based education (PBE) experience. Groundswell’s annual Summer Institute is designed to help Kent and Ottawa County teachers bring PBE into their classrooms. This hands-on workshop will dive deep into effective outdoor learning strategies, connect you with local partners, provide project planning time, and includes raffles for $1,000 for PBE materials for your classroom and registration to the National PBE Conference in November. We are proud to offer this $400-value training at no cost to educators, including expert facilitation and meals provided each day.

Sign up now! Registration closes Friday, July 18th at 5pm EST. 

It's time to pencil us in for your professional learning opportunities this coming academic year!

Save the date for quality learning workshops with expert presenters from Kent and Ottawa Counties and beyond. At a Groundswell PLO, you will always:

Add these dates to your calendar now so you don't miss out!

The Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (GLSI) launched the Place-Based Education (PBE) Institute in 2024 to support teachers who are new to the practice of PBE. The Institute is designed to teach educators the principles of this impactful educational practice and helps participants understand its research-supported benefits and ways to align it with cross-curricular standards for any pK12 grade. Participants will explore implementation strategies and learn how to connect them to their local environment and the larger Great Lakes ecosystems through resources like NOAA’s B-WET framework and the Center for Great Lakes Literacy. Held over six Zoom-based sessions, the Institute equips teachers with practical tools to confidently integrate PBE into their academic year.

Learn more and sign up below!

Are you looking to demonstrate the benefits of planting natives on campus? Are you looking to increase biodiversity in your neighborhood? Perhaps you're interested in creating more sources for pollinators. Whatever it might be, our local Native Plant Guild can point you in the right direction. This group is a network of native landscaping professionals throughout Michigan, and their site is organized into all areas of native planting you might need. Find a small business partner to help you guide your planting process, to purchase product from, to teach your students about the benefits of native plant biodiversity, or check out local job postings in the industry. 

Click the button below to explore their site!

It's arrived! You've seen murals going up all over the city of Grand Rapids, and now it's time to celebrate these amazing artistic creations. Join Groundswell and our partners as we show up for local artists and environmental groups at the Blue Bridge on Saturday, July 26th. Discover environmental art, activism, and education at the Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival! 50 Front Avenue and the surrounding riverside will be full of family-friendly fun and nature education, including twenty-one new murals from artists across the country, each featuring a different endangered species native to Michigan. There will be an art market, educational speakers, kids activities, animal meet and greets, tree ID walks, food trucks, fishing demos and more!

Our friends from Ann Arbor Public Schools have shared with us some fantastic teaching resources regarding indigenous perspectives in social studies as part of the Michigan Indigenous Histories, Cultures, and Governance Project. This work was funded by the Michigan Department of Education's Section 99d Teaching Diverse Histories Grants. It includes host of resources online for teachers to use in the classroom. In the Google Folder they've shared you can learn about the Medicine Wheel Framework for teaching and assessments, view their presentation from the Michigan Council for the Social Studies conference, and dive into articles and primary sources on different topics specific to Michigan Indigenous Histories. 

Click the button below to start exploring. 

Our partners at the Outdoor Discovery Center (ODC) in Holland Michigan are gearing up for a great academic year, and they want to partner with your classroom or school to make outdoor education a reality. Perhaps your admin is looking to create more outdoor learning experiences at your school, or maybe you're in search of a quality partner for your Groundswell stewardship project. Whatever the case may be, the ODC has seasoned outdoor learning professionals who can consult and guide teachers in new ways to get students engaged outdoors directly. 

The ODC has been a longtime partner of our program and continues to provide quality services to schools in Ottawa County and the surrounding area. For more information on services offered, pricing, and availability, visit their website at the button below. 

Questions? Please contact Groundswell at groundswell@gvsu.edu.