Making environmental education more accessible

Since 2024, UW Bothell’s Collaborative for Socio-Ecological Engagement (CoSEE) has provided internship opportunities to students, offering experiential learning and relationship building experiences.

This summer’s cohort was the largest so far, accepting 22 interns into their program.

The interns were placed into one of five pathways: geographic information systems, invasive species, native plants, environmental education, and communications.

Cassandra Humarang (Mathematics ‘26), who recently graduated in June, joined the internship program in the environmental education pathway, working on its Adaptive Library.

CoSEE’s Adaptive Library is a collection of children’s books designed to make environmental and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) learning more accessible for learners with diverse communication and support needs.

Humarang worked with the state’s learning standards to add more sensory aspects to the books.

“One of my goals is to show that math is for everyone, it’s everywhere, and it can be fun,” she said. “The interactive books allow me to do this by thinking outside of the box and creating activities and elements relating to math that children may not realize.”

Read more about Humarang’s internship experience in the full UW Bothell story, “Ecological responsibility at the core of summer learning.”