EE Quotable...
“In the coming decades, the public will more frequently be called upon to understand complex environmental issues, assess risk, evaluate proposed environmental plans and understand how individual decisions affect the environment at local and global scales. Creating a scientifically informed citizenry requires a concerted, systemic approach to environmental education…”
National Science Foundation in Complex Environmental Systems, Synthesis for Earth, Life and Society in the 21st Century, A 10-Year Outlook
(Click the link above to read the whole section
"EE and Workforce" on page 41.)
"...some of the kids we teach are going to grow up and hug trees, and some of them are going to chop them down..."
NAAEE President Brian Day talks about the goals of Environmental Education and the No Child Left Inside Act
Grist Magazine was kind enough to allow us to reprint segments of this interview with Brian Day, the President of the North American Association for Environmental Education. Brian gives some straight answers on why EE is not the same thing as environmental advocacy and why he thinks NCLI is so important.
No Child Left Inside
A chat about Congress' effort to restore environmental education funds
Reprinted by permission from Grist.org. For more thought-provoking 
green news and views, visit Grist online at www.grist.org.
By Amy Linn
26 Sep 2007
"Go outside and play!" It's a simple enough command, but as a nation of teeth-gnashing parents and teachers will tell you, not enough kids want to unplug or log off long enough to heed it. Enter Congress.
That's right, Congress.
Supporters of the legislation include more than 70 organizations, from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Sierra Club to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the National Education Association. Among the bill's driving forces is the North American Association for Environmental Education. Grist checked in with Brian Day, executive director of NAAEE, to find out what inspired the bill -- and why on earth it matters.
Grist: Might as well start off with the rude question: Why do teachers need Washington's help to get kids outside? Can't they just shoo them out for recess -- mission accomplished?
Brian Day: Getting children outside is very important, but the bill is about much more than that. In essence, what it would do is provide federal dollars to help train teachers in environmental education and help states create and carry out environmental education plans.
What we aim to do is go back to educating the whole child. We believe children need the whole piece: social studies, history, art, music. And they need to know about the natural world so that they can make good decisions as adults and citizens. We want to make sure that high-school graduates are environmentally literate.
What's the price tag on No Child Left Inside?
The current version asks for $100 million a year in teacher training -- which looks like a fountain of youth for us. It might sound like a lot of money, but you've got to look at it in perspective: the state of Maryland alone spends $7 billion a year on education.
Are you aiming to turn millions of schoolkids into enviros?
We really want people to understand this: Environmental education is not about advocacy in the classroom. No Child Left Inside is about helping train teachers and helping children understand the issues. The aim is to help students understand how water systems work, how air pollution systems work, how solid waste and sewage treatment systems work, and how business and other concerns factor in. If we can teach children about physical, human, economic, and living systems, we'll be enabling them to ask questions and come up with their own solutions. We want them to be able to work within their community on things like where to put a parking lot -- or where not to put it, for example, because it might impact a water system. It's about providing children with good, honest arguments from all angles.
Still, isn't most environmental education going to be pro-environment?
Some people do come up to me and say, "Oh, I thought you were wanting to train everybody to be a treehugger!" But I say, "No, some of the kids we teach are going to grow up and hug trees, and some of them are going to chop them down."
Literally? As in, they'll become loggers?
Some of them might. But a lot of them will grow up and buy houses and other things that require chopping down trees. As environmental educators, we're just asking that people get the information they need to make responsible choices.
The bill draws on research done by the State Education and Environment Roundtable, a group that's been studying what happens when schools offer environmental education. According to the results, enviro ed boosts student enthusiasm for learning and improves test scores in reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. Plus, it encourages kids to move around, which fights obesity. Who would want to defeat a measure like that?
So far, knock on wood, we haven't had any opposition. And we've got a lot of people on board. No puns intended.
Environmental Educators of North Carolina
Honors Top Educators
EENC is the professional organization (A 501(c)(3) non-profit) for environmental educators in North Carolina. Their members work at or with schools, parks, museums, science centers, botanical gardens, universities, government agencies, research facilities, youth organizations, churches, business and industry, and more. The NC Office of Environmental Education is an organizational member of EENC. Thanks to Elizabeth Burke, Communications Co-Chair, for submitting this article. Congratulations to all the winners!
EENC Award Winners, l to r: Stan Cross, Warren Wilson College; Mir Youngquist-Thurow, Agape Center for Environmental Education; Ronda Jones, Double "RR" Farm; Shelby Gull Laird, It's Our Water; Sandra Weitzel, NC Division of Soil and Water Conservation; Tom Shepard, Piedmont Environmental Center
One of the highlights of the annual EENC conference is the awards ceremony. Each year, EENC publicly recognizes deserving environmental educators, EENC members, and partners for their valuable contributions to EENC, the North Carolina community, and to the field of environmental education. And the winners are ....
Shelby Gull Laird for Outstanding Newcomer. We had a number of board changes this year, due to members moving and being reassigned in their professional positions. Shelby was honored for stepping into the position of EENC’s Policy Chair on the Board of Directors. She’s done an amazing job of sorting through some tedious details of the policy manual to ensure that the business of EENC has continuity. Shelby is the state coordinator of North Carolina’s It’s Our Water program, and is a PhD student in Natural Resources at NCSU.
Sandra Weitzel, regional coordinator for North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the Division of Soil and Water Conservation, was also honored as an Outstanding Newcomer. Sandra joined EENC and immediately stepped in as Treasurer on the Board of Directors. This year, she helped introduce EENC’s TOOLS for Environmental Educators, an innovative teacher education program for environmental educators. In her position with DENR, she’s directed the Food, Land and People program (teaching students about food production), and has been instrumental in the North Carolina Envirothon at the middle school level.
Mir Youngquist-Thurow, a past board member and recipient of the 2001 Outstanding Newcomer Award and 2004 Outstanding Service Award, received EENC’s Melva Okun Lifetime Achievement Award. Her excellent work as Environmental Education Director of the Agape Center for Environmental Education has also received many accolades. Most recently, Agape-Kure Beach ministries was recognized as a "Caring for Creation Center" in the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America). Among the ELCA Outdoor Ministries, of which there are 146 sites, ACE Education ranks 3rd in program attendance after only nine years of programming.
Stan Cross, Education Coordinator for Warren Wilson College’s Environmental Leadership Center, received EENC’s Environmental Educator of the Year Award. Stan was selected for developing and implementing of a variety of environmental education programs, including EcoTeam and The Green Walkabout©. EcoTeam trains college students to teach an ELC-developed environmental education curriculum to 1,500 local third-grade students. The program has been replicated by 21 universities nation-wide. The Green Walkabout© provides campus tours of Warren Wilson College’s sustainability initiatives (green building, sustainable agriculture, forestry and native landscaping).
Anyone who’s attended an EENC conference in the past couple of years has likely returned home with a nicely packaged bag of worm castings, compliments of Ronda Jones’ Double "RR" Farm, this year’s recipient of the Outstanding Environmental Organization. Vermicomposting isn’t a typical choice as a career switcher, but it built on Ronda’s years as a teacher at North Stokes High School. As one of North Carolina’s Certified Environmental Educators, she felt the responsibility to be a good earth stewards and to educate the public.
Tom Shepherd, naturalist with the Piedmont Environmental Center, was the recipient of EENC’s Outstanding Service Award. The award recognizes a member who has served in several key leadership roles, making a significant contribution to further the organization’s mission and to help give direction and depth to EENC. Shepherd has served in a number of board positions, including EENC president. In his many years with EENC he has worked tirelessly to increase membership, promote hands-on environmental education programs for children and provide educators with tools for understanding the natural world and the confidence to share nature with their students.
Albemarle Pamlico Estuary Program Publishes
Newspapers in Education Insert
The News and Observer, the largest circulation publication in the Triangle of North Carolina, printed a 12-page Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program (APNEP) educational insert in its daily circulation of about 170,000 papers, and in newspapers ordered by Newspapers in Education participants, on Nov. 13. The insert highlighted the value of estuaries and increased awareness about the APNEP’s work to protect North Carolina’s coastal resources. APNEP is also distributing 10,000 overrun copies of the insert at presentations, exhibits, festivals and other schools in coastal counties. For more information or to reserve a quantity of the inserts, email joan.giordano@ncmail.net. A .pdf version of the insert, Estuaries: Clean Water for the 21st Century, is also available online.
In other news, APNEP recently launched a new Web site which includes a Recent and Ongoing Projects Page. APNEP funds many demonstration, restoration and environmental education projects in the 30,000 square mile Albemarle-Pamlico Sounds region. Projects include wetland demonstrations and restorations at schools, Teacher Institutes and a Citizen Monitoring Network for water quality. The site has an interactive map with great stories and photos. Check it out!
A scene from the 2007 “Environment and Health: Making Connections through Water Quality Investigations” Teacher Institute, one of several APNEP Environmental Education projects.
Coastwatch on North Carolina Now Debuts Dec.18
North Carolina Sea Grant and UNC-TV are teaming up to present Coastwatch on North Carolina Now. The first segment – focusing on the Rocky Branch stream restoration project – is expected to air Dec. 18 as part of statewide public television network’s nightly newsmagazine. A companion print story appears in the holiday issue of Coastwatch, Sea Grant’s flagship publication.
“UNC-TV and North Carolina Now are excited to be working in collaboration with North Carolina Sea Grant on this project. We are looking forward to bringing our viewers statewide more information on coastal science and an up-close look at important coastal research being conducted by Sea Grant and its partners,” said Shannon Vickery, UNC-TV executive producer for content.
Three pilot segments are funded by a grant from North Carolina State University’s Office of Extension, Engagement and Economic Development.
UNC-TV is working with Sea Grant to develop Web content on www.unctv.org/coastwatch, including downloadable and streaming versions of the segments, as well as material and links that show how the feature topics correlate to eighth-grade science standards, said Katie Mosher, Coastwatch managing editor. “These are print and video stories that are relevant in the classroom,” she explained.
Marlene Stalls, a teacher at Manteo Middle School, is part of a team that identified coastal science topics for the series. “These stories will make a difference,” she said. “Students will see concepts revealed within the coastal region and the larger watersheds.”
Past collaborations for UNC-TV and Sea Grant have included a documentary on Hurricane Fran damage, and another on harmful algal blooms. “We are proud to be able to expand our partnership with UNC-TV,” said Michael Voiland, Sea Grant executive director.
EE News Clips
An environmental education news round up from around the state.
Environmental Education Center News
Stories about the EE Centers listed on www.eenorthcarolina.org!
School News
Updated list of environmental education related school and education articles
College News
Same as above, but from higher education
Research and Resources on EE, Learning, and Behavior
Latest articles, reports and peer-reviewed literature on the benefits of environmental education
Informed Consumer News
The Office of Environmental Education Web site also maintains several lists of updated news articles that cover many topic areas, including farming, food, green building, rivers, outdoor recreation, energy, lawn and garden care, and more. These article posts are part of our Informed Consumer intiative. Check them out! |
