Perry Thomas Shares Insights on New Environmental Education Research

In her recently published paper, “Encountering Friends of Coal: Relationships and Environmental Education”, KAEE member Ellen Prusinski of Centre College revisits interviews she conducted in 2022 and considers them alongside Landscape Analysis data collected by the Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance (SEEA). Together, these findings highlight the importance of developing and maintaining trust across cultural differences and building on initial encounters to create educational experiences that extend across the environmental education (EE) continuum.

Many readers of this newsletter may be familiar with Ellen’s 2024 publication, “What is political about a tree? Grappling with partisan divides in environmental education”, which helped inspire the 2025 NAAEE documentary In Our Nature. That research drew on 31 interviews with EE providers and stakeholders, seeking to contribute “a richer, more nuanced understanding of how politics and EE intersect in educational spaces so that educators, community and - especially - students are able to engage fully in EE and benefit from its orientation toward critical thinking, careful decision making, and respect for the environment.” The findings underscored the commitment of our EE community to the principle of teaching learners how to think, not what to think.

In her 2026 publication, Ellen builds on this earlier work, drawing on additional interviews to explore how educators establish relationships of trust across political and cultural divides—relationships that are critical to meaningful and effective EE. The SEEA Landscape Analysis data add another dimension to this picture, pointing to a significant challenge: educators often struggle to find the time and resources needed to offer learners more than brief encounters with EE and nature.

Taken together, these findings reinforce the importance of creating sustained educational experiences across the EE continuum. Moving beyond one-time encounters creates opportunities not only to deepen learners’ connections with the natural world, but also to build the trusting relationships that support thoughtful engagement, critical thinking, and learning across differences.

The EE Continuum (from the U.S. EPA)