Dr. Marc J. Stern, Professor in the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech, will discuss the evolution of a research program aimed at improving environmental education on a national scale. This story begins with some humble single-program evaluations and quickly scales up into nationwide comparative studies of hundreds of environmental education programs. Its current trajectory involves participatory research encouraging the active use of evaluation data to catalyze collective improvement and adaptive management for dozens of EE organizations at a time. Dr. Stern will share key challenges and lessons learned along the way.