About KEEN
The Kittitas Environmental Education Network (KEEN), established as a 501(c)3 in 2000, is dedicated to fostering a deep understanding of how climate change impacts our lives and the endangered shrub-steppe ecosystem. Through nature-based education for all ages, KEEN strengthens our commitment to environmental protection and restoration, ensuring that the communities we serve become active stewards of the environment.
At KEEN, we believe in lifelong learning, offering informal environmental education opportunities for kids, adults, and seniors alike. Our annual events highlight the unique qualities of our region, collaborating with subject-area experts for field trips, lectures, and educational opportunities that connect participants to the natural world and to one another. Our goal is to cultivate and share the strong sense of place that KEEN recognizes in Kittitas County, with a particular focus on the endangered shrub-steppe habitat.
KEEN’s Nature School programs, which include summer camps and after-school programs, are held at Helen McCabe State Park and within the City of Ellensburg. Each year, we expand these programs, reach out to communities of color, and work to secure scholarships and grants so that families experiencing financial hardship can still access our offerings.
Our Habitat Restoration Team is dedicated to caring for Helen McCabe State Park, the future home of the Yakima Canyon Interpretive Center. Since 2004, KEEN has been working to re-establish native plant communities, manage invasive species, build trails, and expand the park’s use and stewardship. As we work towards renewing our 50-year lease with WA State Parks, we are committed to restoring the park’s ecological functionality, making it a vibrant hub for community outreach in Kittitas County.
KEEN is driven by a passionate Board of Directors and several active committees focused on education and habitat restoration. Our team includes two full-time outdoor educators and four part-time assistants who lead our Nature School programs. In the summer, we hire up to 20 additional staff to support our educational initiatives. While our work is centered in Kittitas County, KEEN actively partners with organizations across Central Washington. Our 2024 budget is $613,000.
Our primary goal is to establish the Yakima Canyon Interpretive Center near Ellensburg, WA. This Center will serve as a gathering place for our community and visitors, providing a space to engage with and connect to nature in Central Washington. As the gateway to the Yakima River Canyon Scenic Byway, the Interpretive Center will inspire lifelong learners to become informed and active citizens, fostering a deep connection to the land we all cherish.
Our Values – What We Believe
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Power of Community: We encourage people to see themselves as part of a diverse community of nature enthusiasts within the broader community of nature.
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Respect for All Life: We show respect for all living things by seeking to understand, celebrating diverse viewpoints, and acting with kindness and empathy.
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Personal Experience: We believe there is no substitute for being IN nature. We maintain our lands for maximum biodiversity to provide unique personal experiences and education.
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Getting Outside: We prioritize frequent experiences in nature, recognizing their critical importance to the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health of all people.
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Stewardship of the Land: We recognize the interdependence of all living things and strive to preserve, restore, and protect our environment.
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Commitment to Sustainability: We make environmentally responsible, economically viable, and socially equitable choices for the long-term stability of our organization, our region, and the earth.
What is Environmental Education?
Environmental education (EE) connects us to the world around us, teaching us about both natural and built environments. EE raises awareness of the issues impacting the environment upon which we all depend and actions we can take to improve and sustain it. Whether through classroom instruction, outdoor learning, or impromptu teachable moments on a nature walk, EE offers numerous benefits for youth, educators, schools, and communities.
Our nation’s future relies on a well-educated public to be wise stewards of the environment that sustains us all. Environmental education helps individuals make the complex connections between economic prosperity, societal benefits, environmental health, and personal well-being. This collective wisdom, gained through education, will be our most compelling strategy for effective environmental management.
Yet studies reveal a significant environmental literacy gap in the U.S. Two-thirds of the public fail basic environmental quizzes, and 88% fail basic energy quizzes. For example, 45 million Americans mistakenly believe the ocean is a source of fresh water, and 130 million think hydropower is the nation’s top energy source.
Environmental education can bridge this gap, increasing student engagement and achievement in science and other core subjects. When integrated into curricula, EE improves science scores and enhances reading, math, and social studies performance. Schools that use the environment as a learning context report reduced discipline problems, increased engagement, and greater student pride.
EE also addresses "nature deficit disorder," a condition affecting today’s children, who spend an average of six hours daily in front of screens but less than four minutes in unstructured outdoor play. This imbalance leads to negative effects, including obesity, loneliness, depression, and attention problems. Increased outdoor time and nature study have been shown to improve cognitive function, reduce attention deficit disorder symptoms, and boost emotional well-being.
KEEN and Washington State Parks
KEEN holds a lease to build the Yakima Canyon Interpretive Center at Helen McCabe State Park, the first recreational site encountered by travelers heading south through the Canyon. This park, named after Dr. Helen McCabe, a leader in Pacific Northwest recreation, is a natural location for an interpretive center highlighting the scenic byway’s resources.
Acquired by Washington State Parks in 1973, the 64-acre park includes half a mile of riparian habitat along Wilson Creek and a 7-acre pond stocked with fish. KEEN adopted and has been restoring habitat at Helen McCabe Park since 2004, investing hundreds of volunteer hours and thousands of dollars into its restoration.
Helen McCabe Memorial State Park, once a gravel pit, became a KEEN restoration site by circumstance and synchronicity. Identified as an ideal location for the Yakima Canyon Interpretive Center, KEEN has worked to re-establish native plant communities, build trails, and expand educational use of the park. We are now working with State Parks to secure a 50-year lease extension, ensuring continuity and fiscal sustainability.
Located at the ‘bottom of the bathtub’ in the Yakima River Valley, the park is home to critical ecosystem services. Every drop of water in the valley filters through and under the park, making its restoration essential. KEEN is working to bring this area back to ecological functionality through invasive species management, floodplain roughening, native planting, and community involvement.
KEEN believes in the social and cultural benefits of functioning ecosystems. We strive to increase public use of the park through trails, work parties, nature preschool, summer camps, and naturalist training. As the effects of climate change become more evident in our region, KEEN’s efforts in this area grow increasingly vital.
Despite the park’s small size, its impact is huge. With over 1.5 million people passing by annually, we have an unparalleled opportunity to communicate essential ecological information, provide a place for reflection, and create a functioning ecosystem that delivers true ecological services.
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KEEN's main project is to establish the Yakima Canyon Interpretive Center (YCIC) at Helen McCabe Memorial Park near Ellensburg, WA.
KEEN's Habitat Team takes care of Helen McCabe Memorial State Park - the future home of the Yakima Canyon Interpretive Center. Since 2004, KEEN has worked to re-establish native plant communities, manage invasive weeds, build trails, run all our nature school programs, and expand the recreational and educational use of the park.
This park space is also a hub for much of our outreach in the greater Kittitas County area. Our volunteer-led organization has spent millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours improving fishing access, trails, and picnic facilities at the park.
KEEN is currently negotiating an additional 50-year lease renewal that will allow us to manage the park in its entirety and move towards returning ecosystem functionality and ecological services on this property on the outskirts of Ellensburg WA.
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KEEN is recruiting for new board members! We are a 'working board' and we all engage in event planning, fundraising, and fiscal management of the organization. If you can share your expertise and passion for environmental education with a commitment of 4-8 hours per month we'd love to welcome you on board! Let us hear from you - keen@keenetwork.org
The Benefits of
Environmental Education
Communities are strengthened
Nature-based outdoor EE promotes a sense of place and connection through community involvement. When learners decide to learn more or take action to improve their environment, they reach out to community experts, donors, volunteers, and local facilities to help bring the community together to understand and address environmental issues impacting their neighborhood.
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Responsible action is taken to better the environment
Nature-based outdoor EE helps learners understand how their decisions and actions affect the environment, builds knowledge and skills necessary to address complex environmental issues, as well as ways we can take action to keep our environment healthy and sustainable for the future. KEEN incorporates service-learning opportunities into our programs including neighborhood cleanups, park improvements, and helping with community gardens.
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Learners and teachers are empowered
Nature-based outdoor EE promotes active learning, citizenship, and student leadership. It empowers youth to share their voice and make a difference at their school and in their communities. Nature-based outdoor EE also helps teachers build their own environmental knowledge and teaching skills.
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Regular participation in nature-based outdoor EE opportunities can also lead to improved social and emotional competencies, including prosocial behavior, intrinsic motivation, better concentration efforts, and higher sense of self-worth. So called social-emotional learning is an integral part of human development that advances educational equity and excellence.
KEEN is committed to authentic learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. This allows staff to address various forms of inequity and empower young people to contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities. Poverty reduction, economic mobility, and reduced reliance on public assistance have also been found to be benefits of social and emotional learning. These “soft skills” are essential for workforce development and lead to more youth being hired and successful in their jobs. Development of personal and social skills in afterschool and summer camp settings that implement SAFE (sequences, active, focused, and explicit) features also lead to higher academic achievement, positive feelings, and attitudes toward school.
Participating in summer and afterschool outdoor programs leads to increased adult supervision which makes youth feel safer and reduces instances of being left unsupervised with peers out of school. It also means that younger children are supervised by older siblings less often.
School-age children and youth spend 80% of their waking hours outside of school, and we estimate that between 30-40% of our community’s children are home alone after the school day ends and during the 9 weeks of summer every year. Afterschool and summer programs can support social, emotional, cognitive, and academic development, reduce risky behaviors, promote physical health, and provide a safe and supportive environment for children and youth.
Afterschool and summer programs also provide a significant return-on-investment, with every $1 invested saving at least $3 through increasing youth’s earning potential, improving their performance at school, and reducing crime and juvenile delinquency.
Other benefits of afterschool and summer programs include:
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Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Attending high-quality afterschool and summer programs and regular participation can lead to improved social and emotional competencies, including prosocial behavior, intrinsic motivation, better concentration efforts, and higher sense of self-worth. SEL is an integral part of education and human development that advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities. Poverty reduction, economic mobility, and reduced reliance on public assistance have also been found to be benefits of social and emotional learning. These “soft skills” are essential for work force development and lead to more youth being hired and successful in their jobs. Development of personal and social skills in afterschool settings that implement SAFE (sequences, active, focused, and explicit) features also lead to higher academic achievement, positive feelings, and attitudes toward school.
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Academic Support. Attending afterschool and summer programs can improve learners’ academic performance. A national evaluation found that more than 40 percent of learners improved their reading and math grades, and that those who attended more regularly were more likely to make gains.
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School Participation. Attending afterschool and summer programs leads to improvement in class participation, better adjustment as young people move to the next phase of schooling, increased school day attendance and participation, and reduced school dropout rates.
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Safety. Participating in afterschool and summer programs leads to increased adult supervision which makes youth feel safer and reduces instances of being left unsupervised with peers out of school. It also means that younger children are supervised by older siblings less often. Adult supervision that is based on developmental relationships promotes positive youth development as it not only promotes personal safety and decreases risky behaviors such as smoking or drug abuse, but also creates an environment where young people learn better and are able to thrive.
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Supporting Working Families. Working families and businesses also benefit from afterschool and summer programs that ensure that youth have a safe place to go while parents or guardians are at work. Parents and guardians who do not have access to childcare miss an average of eight days of work per year, and this decreased worker productivity costs businesses up to $300 billion annually (nationally).
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Nutrition and Physical Activity. Afterschool and summer programs can also improve young people’s dietary snack consumption.