EAST LANSING, Mich.—Heather Majano, City of East Lansing’s environmental stewardship coordinator, conducts her work with a lot of heart as she connects East Lansing students and residents with the natural world around them.

“My heart is right at the intersection of people and nature,” she said.

While she continues to strive for sustainability, she notes creating stronger ties between the city and local schools has been challenging. 

“I’ve done presentations in elementary schools about environmental things,” Majano said. “I have collaborated with community members to lead students on hikes through the forest and teach them about nature, observation and art in nature. But then COVID hit and everything kind of changed.”

Since she began working for the city, Majano’s environmental stewardship program has helped to maintain East Lansing’s natural areas through volunteer workdays and educational outreach. Expanding the close school partnerships have been difficult to reach with limited staffing and resources. 

“The environmental stewardship program at the city is a very small program,” she said. “In fact, right now, it’s just me, and it’s a third of my job.”

Majano hopes for the long-lasting benefits that could come from reconnecting with K–12 students, which has the ability to set an example for the next generation. 

“If the K–12 students can be involved from the beginning, that will help grow the longevity of the program,” she said. “They’ll be able to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I did know about invasive plants. I do know the importance of pollinators.’ They’ll be able to connect with nature wherever they go.”

“Learning about the interdependence of human life with the natural environment in these years is likely to have a lifelong impact,” the authors wrote in Urban Youth Preserving the Environmental Commons: Student Learning in Place-Based Stewardship Education as Citizen Scientists (Sustainable Earth, 2020).

Majano is not alone in her work to center environmentalism in the city’s future. City Councilmember Dana Watson also hopes to strengthen the connection between the city, environmental education, and schools. The city currently has infrastructure projects that are tied to sustainability efforts, including waste management and zoning, but direct collaboration with East Lansing Public Schools on environmental endeavors has stayed limited. 

“We have a governance group that’s supposed to work with the school representatives, like a board member and maybe the superintendent,” Watson said. “But it really hasn’t come to fruition in a bit, probably since COVID.”

Watson said she’s optimistic about upcoming projects, like expanding recycling and launching composting initiatives.

“I will say something I’ve been excited about that is hopefully up and coming sometime is the ability to compost in the city of East Lansing,” she said.

At the Recent East Lansing Commission on the Environment Meeting, Carolyn Miller spoke about the importance of planting native plants and pollinators in urban yards and benefits to the city. Although this is not directly related to K-12 education, Miller does her own work with Michigan State University as a botanical technologist to make beautiful landscapes that also benefit the native species and pollinators in the area.

“Working with MSU lets me connect science and action. When we use native plants in our campus landscapes, we’re creating real habitats for pollinators right here in the city,” said Miller.

Looking outside of city government, there are a wealth of local organizations that have stepped forward to do their part for environmental education. At Fenner Nature Center, Education Director Sam Ansaldi oversees environmental programs that grab the attention of both children and adults through field trips, workshops and summer camps.

“My primary responsibilities are the oversight and creation of our environmental education programs for our school groups,” Ansaldi said. “We usually go about 450 kids throughout the summer. It’s pretty amazing.”

Frenner is a nonprofit that partners with programs like Annie’s Big Nature Lesson, which offers weeklong immersive outdoor experiences for students that lasts year round.

“They’re out here in the middle of January doing nature observations in the snow. It’s great,” Ansaldi said.

Experiential learning where students actively explore and problem-solve is something Ansaldi says is the key to keeping them engaged in environmental issues and other science topics. 

“The more engaged you can get a child into their learning and the more of an active participant they can be, the more beneficial it is,” he said.

The programs Fenner spearheads align closely with East Lansing’s sustainability goals. In 2024, city council voted on 10 strategic goals for the city, one of which was environmental sustainability and climate resiliency. Some of the initiatives toward these goals include increasing recycling participation, managing invasive species and establishing best practices for greenspace management. But Ansaldi hopes for schools and nonprofits to go further.

“We do a lot with conservation education and stewardship,” he said. “But when it comes to school districts or municipalities putting a lot of stuff together, I’d have to look at those intricacies to comment.”

For Majano, that kind of collaboration could be transformative.

“It would just be amazing if we could connect face-to-face, have a regular collaboration,” she said. “We’re increasing the tree canopy and supporting pollinators, all of those things have down-the-line benefits.”

Watson agreed, and noted that city-led environmental progress depends on partnerships with educators and volunteers.

“We’re still finding our footing,” she said, “but as the city expands and programs like composting take off, there’s room for the schools to be part of that progress.”

East Lansing’s sustainability work continues one project at a time, from city landscapes and recycling, to classrooms and nature walks.

“If we start when kids are young, they grow up connected to the outdoors and wanting to protect it,” Majano said.