SEMIS Coalition

10/12/2026

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day!

While there are many ways to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day today, we'd especially like to lift up the Step Into Our Stories learning modules, literature guides, and teaching resources created through a collaboration between the Confederation of Michigan Tribal Education Departments and the Indigenous Education Initiative at the Michigan Department of Education! These resources are a warm invitation for non-Indigenous and Indigenous educators to work as relatives to bring Indigenous Education to Michigan classrooms - not just Indigenous history. If you're an educator, and especially if you are a place-based educator, we encourage you to take a few minutes today to get to know the Step Into Our Stories learning bundle and invite you to let us know how you'd like to engage with them as a coalition!

Thank you to all of the Indigenous educators and community members who share this knowledge and invitation to learn and unlearn with all of us.

https://youtu.be/dJoCszkrXTo?si=qZuKWAj1F7pYoiPK

10/02/2026

For this week's Field Story Friday, we're celebrating the incredible Fall Professional Learning Day we held yesterday at Lake Erie Metropark. The Huron-Clinton Metroparks staff hosted us and led workshops on rain gardens, hawk watching, and monarch butterfly migration. We explored the foundations and applications of Place-Based and Ecojustice Education, participated in a teacher-led adaptation of Ed Camp, and collaborated during independent planning time. Angela Scapini from Michigan Sea Grant and Becca Nielsen from Ecology Center helped us think about how to involve community partners right from the beginning of a PBE process. SEMIS Coalition members are bursting with ideas and inspiration, and we're excited to see what PBE units and projects will be launched in the coming months!

Huge thanks to Erin Parker and Macy Kunkle from the Metroparks and Erika VanKirk from Detroit River Hawk Watch for leading such informative and engaging programming. And, shout out to Sugar Island Cafe + Bakery and Top Shawarma Place for sustaining us with delicious food. We're grateful to everyone who helped make this day a success! Huron-Clinton Metroparks HawkWatch International Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge Sugar Island Cafe + Bakery Michigan Sea Grant Ecology Center

09/25/2026

Last Friday we spent a sunny day with the fourth graders from Estabrook Elementary at the Toyota R&D Headquarters in Saline as a part of the the Jane Goodall Institute Roots & Shoots Program. Scholars spent the day learning from community organizations about our local ecosystems and ways we can get to know and take care of our wildlife neighbors. At the SEMIS Coalition station, they explored how humans and animals use our senses to get information about our environment by trying to use their less-dominant senses to figure out what was hiding in a box (a very good sense of hearing pictured here!)

Over the course of the school year, they'll have the opportunity to think about how they want to apply what they learned to create better habitats on their school campus - stay tuned for more from this awesome group of young people!

A big thanks to Toyota and the Jane Goodall Institute for putting together such a great event and to the Estabrook scholars and teachers for bringing so much energy to the day!

09/24/2026

Big news! The National Place-Based Education Conference, hosted by Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative is coming back to Eastern Michigan University next year! We're really looking forward to working with our friends across the GLSI network to plan and host the conference again. Stay tuned for more updates - the call for proposals will be coming soon!

09/18/2026

On this , we're delighted to be able to shout out our friends at Salina Elementary School and Salina Intermediate 4 - 8 in Dearborn who celebrated lots of exciting milestones with a major ribbon cutting event this week. Over the past few years, Salina has significantly expanded outdoor learning and nature-based play across their campus with several nature-based playscapes, a prairie installation, and multiple student-led rain garden installations. Salina has been a part of the SEMIS Outdoor Learning Program since its very beginning in 2022 and has not only been a champion for outdoor learning and green schoolyards in their own district, but have regularly opened their doors (and their outdoors!) to visitors from other districts in southeast Michigan and to place-based educators from around the country. We are so proud of everything this passionate group of students, educators, and administrators have accomplished - and can't wait to continue to celebrate with them as they break ground on Phase 3 of their green schoolyards project next week! Congratulations, Wildcats!!

Dearborn's Salina schools unveil two new green schoolyard playgroun...

08/31/2026

Another first day today!!! And, a first week ever for some! We are sending all the well wishes and happy thoughts for the start of the new school year!

Wishing you all a wonderful year of outdoor learning, adventures in nature, and place-based learning projects that help to build stronger communities! 🎒❤

08/24/2026

It's hard to believe it is back to school season!! 🙃📚🌳 And for everyone who headed back this morning, we wish you a great first week of getting to know your students and reconnecting with colleagues and families! We hope you had a successful Monday to kick things off!! 💚🎒

08/13/2026

This week we kicked off our "Community Resilience From the Youth Up" teacher cohort with a fantastic planning workshop! Detroit educators from The School at Marygrove, Mumford High School, Frederick Douglass Academy, and Renaissance High School joined SEMIS staff and Detroit-based community partners to develop place-based resilience units for their classrooms. Huge thanks to the UM-SEAS Detroit Sustainability Clinic team for hosting us, as well as to partners from the City of Detroit Office of Sustainability and the Wayne County Sustainability and Innovation Department for joining us. We can't wait to see these incredible place-based partnerships, curriculum plans, and student-led community resilience projects in action this fall! @ University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability

08/01/2026

Day 5 of the SEMIS Summer Institute wrapped up a fantastic week of place-based learning and relationship building across our Coalition. After a morning of planning, butter-making, community partner consultations, and a pizza party, we were bursting with ideas for the coming year. A highlight of our final day is the Awards Ceremony-- our opportunity to honor the exemplary contributions of our members. This year we were thrilled to celebrate these incredible educators:

- Bill Albrecht, Mumford High School Teacher: Powerful Place-Based Educator Award
- Sue Stanley, Salina Elementary Principal: Outstanding Contributions to the SEMIS Coalition Award
- Laura McKinstry, Ford STEAM Early Learning Center STEAM Coach: Dedication to Place-Based Education Award
- Liz Glynn & Lee Smith Bravender, Matthaei Botanical Gardens: Powerful Place-Based Partnerships Award
- Alistair Bomphray, University of Michigan Marsal Family School of Education and The School at Marygrove: Outstanding Administrative Support of Place-Based Teaching Award

We are grateful to everyone who joined us in making this week so special and we're already looking forward to gathering again this fall. Thank you!
Detroit Public Schools Community District Ypsilanti Community Schools

07/31/2026

On Day 4 of the SEMIS Summer Institute, we focused on two key anchors of PBE: Understanding of Place and Informed Civic Engagement and Action. Our morning traveling dialogue took us to sites in Ypsilanti that have been impacted by a history of industrial land use. Katie Jones, Manager of Strategic Communications, Economic Development & Equity, talked to us about brownfield redevelopment at Water Street and how residents can participate in local decision-making. At North Hydro Park, we walked along the Huron River and reflected on how the creation of the Ford Lake Dam has changed the landscape. Beth Gibbons, Director of the Washtenaw County Resiliency Office, met us at the American Mobility Center/historic Willow Run site in Ypsilanti Township and talked about the challenges that the construction of data centers bring to our communities. Back at EMU, we enjoyed a delicious lunch from FedUp Ministries and participated in a fishbowl-style discussion about the challenging emotions that civic issues bring up for both students and educators. We were incredibly fortunate to have Dr. Jessica Swan, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education at EMU, and Megan Mueller Johnson from the Neutral Zone share their insights and expertise during the fishbowl reflections. Huge thanks to Katie, Beth, Jessica, and Megan for joining us today! Washtenaw County Resiliency Office City of Ypsilanti, MI Government City of Ypsilanti, MI Government The Neutral Zone