Northeast Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative: Engaging Youth in Great Lakes Stewardship through Place-Based Education Partnerships

The Northeast Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (NE MI GLSI) is a regional network of schools and communities partnering to promote sustainable and high quality place-based stewardship education (PBSE) experiences. This rural network empowers youth as partners in protecting our Great Lakes and natural resources through hands-on learning in their community.  PBSE principles offer a pedagogical process by which to engage students as Great Lakes stewardship partners, contributing to water quality monitoring, habitat restoration, invasive species, native fish restoration, biodiversity conservation, and other important environmental issues.  Citizen science, underwater robotics, and estimating invasive species populations illustrate examples of how Environmental-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning can support the knowledge, skills, and spark of opportunities empowering students to successfully accomplish their environmental stewardship projects. During the 2013-2014 school year, the NE MI GLSI network supported 33 schools (154 educators) across eight counties; involving 3,274 youth (nearly 20% of targeted student population) in stewardship projects.  In total, this network has supported 13,266 youth in fielding PBSE opportunities since 2009.  The NE MI GLSI network serves as a regional model of school-community partnerships centered on PBSE strategies and provides lessons learned through case studies of youth-led stewardship projects grounded in Environmental-STEM learning experiences.