Watershed Protection River Community Education Natural History Conservation Wetland Restoration Water Quality Protection Partnerships Diversity Non-Profit Kansas 412 East 9th Street, Lawrence 66044 phone 785-840-0700

Poetry Series Launched

by Alison Reber

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http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs004/1101274774513/archive/1101954710829.html


 


Bob Burkhart, Stephanie Barrows, and I have been collaborating on a project designed to spark ideas and conversation about personal relationships within the natural world and how they carry forth into the future.


Many of you know that this topic is especially fascinating for me.


From one side of the state to the other, 10 year olds to 90 year olds, I’ve guided group discussions about where people live and what they hope is different in the future. Generally speaking, people like where they live and they hope that in the future others will valued it more than they do now.


With Mudscapes thousands of young people have worked together as neighbors to plan out their ideal watershed. Not unsurprisingly they create something that mirrors what they see in the world around them. Urban, rural, good, bad, ugly…and equally fascinating.


Several years ago Bob and I began having indepth conversations about teaching approaches that spark collaborative learning. For me when that happens it’s like a moment in time freezes and I try to become invisible before the “students” suddenly realize they’re learning from each other without “teacher-directed curriculum bumpers”. Bob and I have been refining guided storytelling techniques that build shared visions of the future.

We met Stephanie through the Wetland Learners Project. She has a talent for tenacity, a passion for poetry, and a calm capacity to channel creative chaos. She also taught me a cool word — diachronical, which means changes that happen over time. Stephanie’s been wearing the letters off her keyboard trying to work out the details for this and several other poetry endeavors.


In mid-December we hosted a poetry reading at KVHA’s office. From there we decided to launch a spring series - recording the events with the hope of connecting the poetry with several of KVHA’s other projects.


Details about the events in this series are shown above. If all goes well, we plan to hold a special event in June to share and celebrate these new endeavors. -ALR