Global Environmental and Outdoor Education Council (GEOEC)

Upcoming Conference

Conference Registration

Past Conferences

GEOEC Conference Mission Statement

To professionally educate and share resources within the field of global, environmental and outdoor education

Conference 2009

April 24-26, 2009
Parks Canada Palisades Stewardship Education Centre
Jasper National Park, Alberta

Thanks to everyone who made it a success!
Feedback? Contact conference@geoec.org

Keynote speakers

GEOEC Conference 2009 offered full day and partial day sessions designed to get brains and bodies moving. Opportunities to integrate Global, Environmental and Outdoor education activities into your teaching was the focus, with links to all curriculum areas highlighted as we learned by doing and by sharing with other educators.

Sessions took place at the Parks Canada Palisades Stewardship Education Centre, just outside of the Jasper townsite. Networking activities included Friday night BBQ and open mic at the Palisades, and Saturday keynote supper and music at the Sawridge Hotel.

Thanks to Our Keynote Speakers

	Naturalist, Rockies guide, writer, speaker, educator and consultant Ben Gadd knows the Canadian Rocky Mountains well. He is the author of seven books on the area. His best-selling Handbook of the Canadian Rockies is an award-winning guide to everything from geology, botany and bears to human history and backpacking trips. With a degree in earth science and 30 years of teaching and writing about the Rockies, Ben Gadd is an acknowledged authority on the region. Ben has been an independent natural-history guide in Jasper National Park, Alberta, since 1985. He is licensed by Parks Canada and fully insured. Ben can take your group out for a walk, put on a slide show, lead your tour – or just join you around the campfire to answer questions and swap yarns.

	Bradley Stewart Young was born in 1977, in Grand Forks, North Dakota and was raised in the Muskego Cree zone of refuge at Crossing Bay, Manitoba. In 1998, he attended the Canadian Environmental Field Studies in Africa Program in Kenya, Africa on academic scholarship. In 2002, he received a bachelor's degree with distinction in Native Studies (major) and Environmental Conservation Sciences (minor). He was the first Indigenous student to earn this combined credential from the University of Alberta. Also he served as the president of the Aboriginal Student Council while at the University of Alberta. In 2005, he graduated first in his class with a Master's of Arts degree in Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria. As of 2005, he has been a doctoral student in the Indigenous Governance Program. Bradley is currently the director of the Aboriginal Involvement Program at the Foothills Research Institute in Hinton, AB. Together with industry, government, and indigenous nation partners, he coordinates traditional cultural land use research and protection efforts on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. He was the past coordinator for the Aboriginal Community Relations Program at the University of Alberta. He also directed the Summer Science Program at the First Nations Longhouse at the University of British Columbia. A dynamic speaker, committed community role model, father of four, and husband, Bradley is a mediator between cultures and at his core, a student and protagonist of and for the natural world.

	Janice Eisenhauer is Volunteer Executive Director and co-founding member of the National Office of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. She is a native Calgarian and holds an Honour's Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies from the University of Calgary. Her 1999 honours thesis focused on the empowerment of women in Afghanistan. Janice has travelled extensively in developing countries and has worked with several environmental and non-profit organizations. Janice is a full time volunteer with CW4WAfghan and over the past twelve years has been coordinating the daily operation and development of this internationally recognized social justice organization. Janice has been honoured for her long-standing volunteerism in Canada as winner of the 2001 National Post/L'Oréal Canada Women of Influence, the 2007 Soroptimist Making a Difference for Women Award, the Alberta Centennial Medal, and the Calgary Rotary Integrity Award 2007.