From the Soil to the Stars: Systems Connect Us All — A Recap of the 2026 Conference
From the Soil to the Stars: Systems Connect Us All — Recapping the 2026 Kansas and Missouri Environmental Education Conference.
From the Soil to the Stars: Systems Connect Us All — A Recap of the 2026 Conference.
What a stellar couple of days we had at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center in Kansas City for the 2026 Kansas and Missouri Environmental Education Conference! Thank you to everyone who joined us as presenters, attendees, sponsors and exhibitors. We hope you’re feeling as motivated and inspired as we are after our time together.
We kicked off the conference with an thought-provoking and deeply personal keynote presentation from Diane Mora, Program and Education Director at Kids Feeding Kids, entitled "From Classroom to Community: Nourishing People, Planet, and Possibility". Diane shared her own family's story about how arsenic used for weed control on the nearby railroad tracks contaminated the groundwater and soil on her family's land, making its way into their vegetable garden, and leading to multiple family members developing metastatic cancer.
During the early 1900s, railroads across Kansas and the rest of the United States relied heavily on arsenic-based compounds for weed control and wood preservation. This widespread practice resulted in persistent, long-term soil and groundwater contamination that environmental agencies still work to remediate today.₁
Diane expertly wove the conference theme of From the Soil to the Stars: Systems Connect Us All with her family's story, inviting us to recognize the connections that unite us and the role educators play in creating lasting change — just as she is doing with her work at Kids Feeding Kids, teaching high school students about food waste and food insecurity while imparting valuable culinary skills that they can use to nourish themselves and their community.
Diane's keynote was followed by a Light Walk at Night led by Dr. Vayujeet Gokhale, astronomy and physics professor at Truman State University, and a prominent advocate for dark-sky preservation. Dr. Gokhale led conference attendees on a lighting audit around the Anita B. Gorman Center. The group walked a one-mile loop with light meters to measure sky brightness. They identified areas with excessive glare or unshielded fixtures and noted their observations.
Day two of the conference kicked off with breakfast followed by three sets of concurrent sessions. Session titles below:
From Seed to System: Using Vertical Gardening to Explore Food, Health, and Sustainability
How Our Past and Future is Shaped by the Plants We Grow: A Perennial Sorghum Case Study
The Trail Effect: How Small‑Town Partnerships Expand Environmental Education
Pathways to Participation: Growing Sustainable School Communities
Let there be Night: Curricular Resources to engage students in Light at Night
From Single-Use to Lasting Change: Plastics Reduction in Schools
Find your Flock: Developing a Conservation Culture through Backyard Birds
Collaboration in the Outdoor Space
Slow Viewing Workshop: Place + People
One Square Meter: A Micro-Examination of Nature
Food Too Good To Waste: Closing the Loops with Food Waste
Schools as a Green Ecosystems
How Food Connects Us: Systems. Students. Solutions.
Conservation and Outdoor Learning with Monarch Butterflies
Emotional Imperialism in the Outdoors: Supporting Diverse Feelings
Collaborative Summer Library Program
Our lunch keynote featured three speakers: Sunni Hutton and Amanda Tello of Sow Joy Peoples Fund, and Nick Speed of Ujima.
"As the temperature increases in our cities, climate disasters disrupt lives, and land is destroyed, there lies the fear of environmental doom. The work we do daily often feels like it is not enough. Despite it all we are still here!" Amanda led us in a grounding exercise, rooting us in the conference theme, “From Soil to the Stars: Systems Connect Us All”, reminding us that we are a resilient environmental justice ecosystem of organizers, educators, funders, growers, stewards, advocates, lawyers, researchers, and engineers, rooted in the collective care of Earth and each other.
Amanda, Nick, and Sunni shared organizational models that reaffirmed the collective values that drive action, reconnect with community, and reestablish hope.
From the soil beneath our feet to the networks that sustain our field, this year's conference is built on a simple but profound truth: everything is connected. The health of our land shapes the health of our communities; the strength of our schools and food systems determines how well our children and ecosystems thrive; and the relationships we build with each other as educators, leaders, and neighbors are what make lasting change possible. Across three strands — Relationships that Sustain Us, Systems that Sustain Us, and Connections that Sustain Us — this conference invites us to explore those connections from the ground up, from the personal to the communal, from the backyard to the watershed.
Environmental education has always understood what systems thinkers are still working to convince the rest of the world: that you cannot separate human wellbeing from ecological health, or individual learning from the communities that shape it. This year, we gather to deepen that understanding together — to trade ideas, forge partnerships, and leave with the tools and relationships to do more than any of us could alone. Whether you come as an educator, a land steward, an environmental/outdoor learning supporter, or a curious learner, there is a place for you in this system. And this system is better because you are in it.
A sincere thank you to our 2026 Conference Sponsors:
Evergy | https://www.evergy.com/
FINKLE + WILLIAMS Architecture | https://www.finklewilliams.com/
Missouri Parks Association | https://missouriparksassociation.org/
KCEEN / MARC Solid Waste Management District | https://www.marc.org/environment/recycling-and-solid-waste/solid-waste-management-district
Kansas Health Foundation | https://kansashealth.org/
River City Outdoors | https://www.rivercityoutdoors.org/
Bass Pro Shops + Wonders of Wildlife | https://www.basspro.com/home | https://wondersofwildlife.org/
Missouri Wildflower Nursery | https://mowildflowers.net/
SUNSMART TECHNOLOGIES | https://www.sunsmartusa.com/
City of Springfield Environmental Services Department | https://www.springfieldmo.gov/5641/Environmental-Services
Kansas Department of Wildlife & Parks | https://www.ksoutdoors.gov/
Kansas Forest Service | https://www.kansasforests.org/
Kids Feeding Kids | https://kidsfeedingkids.org/
McCown Gordon | https://mccowngordon.com/
BranchPattern | https://www.branchpattern.com/
Kansas Water Office | https://www.kwo.ks.gov/
Acorn Naturalists | https://www.acornnaturalists.com/
Franklin County Conservation District | https://www.fccdks.org/
Great Blue Heron Outdoors | https://www.greatblueheronoutdoors.com/
Kansas Department of Agriculture | https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/
Butler County Conservation District | https://butlercountyconservationdistrictks.com/
Wilson County Conservation District | https://www.kacd.net/businesses/Wilson-Co-Conservation-District
About the keynote organizations:
Kids Feeding Kids is a classroom‑based, service‑learning program that partners with middle and high school FACS and CTE educators to teach their students about food waste and insecurity and prepare meals that are distributed free to families in their own communities.
Sow Joy Peoples Fund (SJPF) is a community-centered and led funding initiative supporting Black, Indigenous, people of color-led environmental justice grassroots organizations working on the frontlines in the St. Louis Metro and Metro East areas. The fund and its resources were originally stewarded by the Franciscan Sisters of Mary (FSM), a congregation dedicated to community service. Through their vision, this fund was created to foster a just culture of giving and shift power to the frontline.
One of the SJPF’s grantees is Ujima, founded in 2018 by Nick Speed. Ujima is a St. Louis nonprofit service provider that creates equitable access to food, education and employment. They manage an urban farm, George Washington Carver Farms, created a holistic community for Black teenagers and young adults called The Sunflower Institute as well as address illegal dumping in North St. Louis city by cleaning up over 14,000 pounds of trash since 2021. Their vision is for North St. Louis to be a thriving community with access to quality food, sustainable agriculture, green infrastructure, housing, education, and employment.
Sources
Comments