“Your JournEE: The Past, Present and Future of Oklahoma EE”
Oklahoma’s premier gathering for environmental educators
On February 5-6, 2026, 265 educators came together in Oklahoma City for the 2026 EE Expo, Your JournEE: The Past, Present, and Future of Oklahoma Environmental Education. It was OKAEE’s largest event in over a decade. The educators who attended will reach an estimated 258,562 students across Oklahoma this year.
What Attendees Experience
The Route 66-themed program brought together formal classroom teachers, early childhood professionals, and nonformal educators from museums, parks, nature centers, agencies, and nonprofits. Dr. Matthew Pearce, Oklahoma State Historian, opened the conference with a plenary on teaching Oklahoma’s environmental history and returned on Friday to facilitate a panel on where environmental education is headed.
With 56 hands-on workshops, presentations, and sessions across early childhood, elementary, middle school, high school, and nonformal tracks, attendees found practical tools for their own programs. Topics included nature journaling, pollinator gardens, Project WET, Growing Up WILD, Envirothon, climate change storytelling, teaching environmental justice in Oklahoma, community science, grant writing for educators, and Oklahoma’s keystone species. Lightning Talks offered quick looks at programs like H2Oklahoma and BioBlitz.
Beyond the sessions, participants joined a Tree Walk, UCO Sustainability Tours, a self-guided nature journaling experience, and a World Café on shaping the future of Oklahoma’s environmental education highway, together. Evening events, TrivEEa and Kara-OKAEE, built the connections that keep this community strong all year.
Who Comes to EE Expo
- 265 educators participated
- 58% were first-time attendees, a sign of a growing movement across the state
- 56% will work in rural communities in 2026
- 50% serve low-income communities or youth
- 57 scholarships ($5,885 total) covered registration, travel, and substitute costs, so more educators could join us
Why Educators Come Back
- 97% were satisfied or very satisfied with their experience
- 88% found the conference helpful or very helpful to their professional development goals
- 93% are likely or very likely to attend again
“I left with many tools in my science toolkit that I didn’t have before,” one attendee shared. Another said, “It was like a reunion, I met so many like-minded professionals and felt so empowered by this!”
Our Sponsors
EE Expo is made possible by partners who share our commitment to Oklahoma’s educators and students. Sponsorship connects your organization directly with the people shaping how a quarter million Oklahoma students learn about the environment. Our 2026 sponsors were:
- Catoosa Blue Whale: University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma Envirothon, Kirkpatrick Foundation, TSET
- Weatherford Spaceman: Oklahoma Conservation Commission, Blue Thumb
- Edmond Blue Hippo: Oklahoma WildCare, Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, Beech Tree Paper, Oklahoma Ornithological Society, OSU, OSU Extension 4-H Youth Development
- Route 66 Sign: OREEP, Oklahoma Monarch Society, Tulsa County Parks & Recreation, Acorn Naturalists, OKAGE, Oklahoma Recycling Association, KidWind, Fertile Ground Cooperative, Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition, National Park Service, CASA, OSU Center for Research on STEM Teaching and Learning, Minick Materials, National Geographic Learning, Cengage
Join Us in 2027
The 2027 Oklahoma Environmental Education Expo will be held February 4-5, 2027. To register, sponsor, or exhibit, contact us at or visit www.okaee.com.
Kim Watson from Tulsa’s Chandler Park holding a corn snake. |
Attendees learn about rivers in Oklahoma. |
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Attendees getting some sunshine while practing nature journaling. |
Laura Wilhelm and Charlotte Wood-Wilson’s session “A Woven JournEE to the Past, Present & Future” |
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Attendees enjoying a laugh during this activity. |
Keynote speaker, Oklahoma State Historian Dr. Matthew Pearce, discusses how to teach Oklahoma’s Environmental History. |
