For 48 years, NAAEE has brought environmental educators from across the globe together for the field’s largest annual professional gathering. It’s the place where we come together not just to celebrate our accomplishments, but, much more importantly, to build connections to each other, hear new voices, get inspired, and push our field forward.

We’ve made the decision to move the 49th Annual Conference and Research Symposium online this year to protect the health and safety of our attendees, volunteers, and staff. We’re truly hopeful that a virtual gathering will bring an even broader diversity of participants than could have participated in person.

As millions of people are uniting unequivocally against racism and injustice, we know that our conference has the potential to further the cause of racial justice and equality by providing a global platform for working collaboratively toward long term, systemic change. And being online brings new opportunities to strengthen our commitment to equity in the field. Our online conference will include the rich variety of sessions that is always part of our conference, and we promise opportunities for networking, creativity, and innovation. We’ll be in touch soon with all who submitted proposals. In addition, we’ll continue to offer scholarships to help as many people as possible to join us.

I also want to thank our many wonderful partners in Tucson, Arizona, where we hoped to gather this year. The good news is that we will be heading there in 2022, after celebrating our 50th anniversary in Pittsburgh in 2021!

We look forward to having important and provocative discussions and working together to build the world we want. Environmental education has never been more important.

Help us shape the virtual conference! We would particularly appreciate your thoughts on how we can create a virtual conference that will best meet your needs. Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey.

We'll see you online in October!

Judy Braus

Executive Director