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About Me

Life-long learner with a passion for nature. 

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My name is Jen Kappelhof. I have a passion for nature, care deeply for the environment and spend a lot of time outdoors with my family. I have been an early childhood educator for 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am constantly reflecting, growing and changing to improve my practice as an educator. I recently began a program to become a certified environmental educator with the goal to provide ALL students with equitable, inclusive and culturally-relevant environmental education experiences. 

 

As part of my final project, I wanted to share my knowledge and create a resource to help other teachers get started. During my program I became aware of the process of land acknowledgement. “Territory acknowledgement is above all, an opportunity to be in better relation with one another. It is a chance to acknowledge our pasts and commit to a better shared future (Dr. Meredith L. McCoy).” 

 

I want to acknowledge that I live on the homelands of the ancestral and unceded traditional land of the Saclan people, one of six different Bay Miwok tribes. 

 

Bay Miwok is one of seven Miwok languages. Miwok is a modern designation that group together distinct tribes of Native people based on the languages they spoke and their broad-based cultural affiliations (Virtual Museum, Native California, Tribal Identity, Cal State East Bay).

 

I honor with gratitude the Saclan people who have stewarded this land throughout the generations and their ongoing contributions to this region. I acknowledge the ongoing injustices that we have committed against the Saclan people, and I wish to interrupt this legacy through my continued education and commitment to build this resource guide. 

 

Please click on the get started section of this guide to begin building your knowledge of indigenous people past, present and future in your community and designing environmental education opportunities that embed indigenours knowledge, land and water based teaching and learning. 

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