The Kentucky Association for Environmental Education (KAEE) is excited to recognize Catherine Graber of Bloom Elementary as the recipient of the 2026 M.K. Dickerson Outstanding Educator Award.
Catherine serves as the Compassionate Schools Project Teacher at Bloom Elementary, a public K–5 school in Louisville, working with more than 500 students. While she provides social-emotional learning instruction throughout the school, one of her most important classrooms is right outside the school building.
The School Garden
Over the last four years, Catherine has worked with students, families, staff, and volunteers to transform Bloom’s aging school garden into a thriving organic garden and outdoor learning space. That work has gone hand in hand with her leadership of student environmental education teams, where students get to take the lead on projects throughout the school and beyond. Their work has included recycling challenges, field trips to natural areas, trips on public transit, an annual EV Fair, and plenty of peer education. This year, the 50+ students on the Garden Team helped complete much of Phase I of the garden renovation and earned Best of Level 2 Projects at the STLP Kentucky State Championship as well as receiving Green-level recognition from the Kentucky Green Schools program. The school also celebrated impressive accomplishments in its recycling efforts, breaking two Guinness World Records this year.
Students Take the Lead in Growing a Sustainable, Outdoor Learning Community
The garden renovation started with students taking a closer look at what was already around them. They observed the existing garden, documented all that they found, researched and looked into possible solutions, and worked through the many steps and details that go into creating a sustainable garden. Their work looked into every detail from soil and irrigation to native plants, pollinators, accessibility, and how the space could better support teaching and learning.
That hard work eventually led them to the first phase of Bloom’s new organic garden, which includes two outdoor classrooms. The garden is designed as a sustainable ecosystem for the native plants and trees, insects, birds, and other wildlife that live there, while also providing a space for students to grow and eat food, learn, and spend time outdoors.
The project has also been a great community effort. Together, students, families, and volunteers have helped raise $34,000 to support the garden renovation.
And the students aren't simply watching the project happen. They are helping make it happen.
Kindergarten nature journaling Planting pollinators
Learning Through the Natural World
Catherine’s work doesn't stop at the garden itself. As Bloom’s Compassionate Schools Project Teacher, she provides weekly social-emotional learning instruction to students using mindful awareness as a cognitive and behavioral tool. The garden provides a natural setting for those lessons and creates opportunities for students to see the connections between themselves, their school, and the environment around them.
Catherine also supports the broader school community by providing professional development for teachers and staff through Calm for Teachers programming and coaching support for student families.
Her approach to environmental education is not about simply teaching students about nature. It gives them opportunities to participate in it, care for it, and see themselves as part of it.
Looking Ahead
The new garden is only the beginning. Bloom’s green team has developed a three-phase plan for continuing the project.
The next phase will add more planters, additional pollinator-friendly native plants, and fundraising. As the phases continue, we will see future plans that include a new accessible ramp, tiered seating for an entire class, additional native plantings, bird livestream technology, a weather station, and micro-meadow signage.
The team will continue fundraising to make those plans possible, including a Give for Good Louisville fundraising event and garden grand opening planned for September 2026.
Catherine’s nomination for the M.K. Dickerson Outstanding Educator Award came with a simple goal: to bring recognition to the environmental education happening at Bloom Elementary and to the work being done to make sure those opportunities continue for students.
Those efforts have already made an impact.
KAEE is proud to recognize Catherine Graber as the 2026 M.K. Dickerson Outstanding Educator and we can't wait to honor her at the 2026 KAEE Conference in Lexington, Kentucky. The 2026 Excellence in Environmental Education Awards will be presented during the awards dinner on Thursday, November 12, at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Lexington/UK Coldstream.
