FOR PROVIDERS
 RESOURCES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATORS
JOIN THE CREEC ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION LEADERSHIP TEAM
Leaders in environmental education from local non-profit, community group, business, and government sectors, are invited to join the CREEC-LA EE Leadership Team. This networking group supports & promotes one another, collaborates, and shares resources. Quarterly networking meetings give members of the EE Leadership Team the opportunity network with other EE providers, discuss the latest in EE news and initiatives such as EEI and No Child Left Inside, network, and discuss topics relevant to the group and EE in Los Angeles and statewide. Topics are chosen by the group itself, and experts are often brought in to illustrate key points.
Our next CREEC-LA EE Leadership Meeting will take place on Thursday, June 18, 2009 from 7:30 am to 9:30 am at the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens. For details, email Candice using the link to the left.
PROVIDER NEWS
Do you love Marine Protected Areas? Want to show your
support?
Marine Protected Areas (MPA's)
have been scientifically proven to protect and enhance degraded ecosystems,
including kelp forests and fish communities. They are basically areas of the
ocean set aside as safe havens from fishing to protect and conserve marine life
and habitat. There are three main types of marine protected areas: 1) State
Marine Parks, which prohibit commercial fishing, but allow recreational fishing;
2) State Marine Conservation Areas, which allow limited commercial and
recreational fishing; and 3) Marine Reserves, which completely prohibit the
harvest of marine life and alteration of marine habitats.
To show your support take a digital picture of
yourself and your friends holding a sign which reads, "I support MPAs!" and post
it to the quickly growing Cal Oceans Flickr Campaign to show how many southern
Californians support MPAs! (http://www.flickr.com/groups/caloceans/). Cal Oceans is a
coalition consisting of 17 environmental groups and aquariums committed to a
healthy future for Californians oceans. For more information and other ways to get involved, go to www.caloceans.org or www.healthebay.org/currentissues/mpas .
ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
Green Drinks allows for anyone concerned about environmental issues to get together over a drink. LA Green Drinks: Culver City 1st, Hermosa Beach 2nd, Silverlake 3rd, Studio City and Long Beach 4th - Thursday of every month. Green Drinks events are very simple, informal, unstructured, and self organizing but help connect the green network. Let's bring together the huge LA environmental community and have fun doing it! Subscribe to the LA Green Drinks visit http://www.lagreendrinks.blogspot.com/
DEVELOP AND IMPROVE YOUR EE RESOURCES AND CURRICULA
Are you looking for resources that will help you design and implement effective environmental education programs?
The National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education, initiated by NAAEE (National Association for Environmental Education) in 1993, has developed a series of Guidelines that set the standards for high-quality environmental education. Each of these publications was developed by a diverse team of professionals, and each has gone through a substantive review by thousands of professionals prior to its publication.
Through the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education, NAAEE is taking the lead in establishing guidelines for the development of balanced, scientifically accurate, and comprehensive environmental education programs. Quality environmental education programs help develop an environmentally literate citizenry that can compete in our global economy; has the skills, knowledge, and inclinations to make well-informed choices; and exercises the rights and responsibilities of members of a community.
The latest versions of printed materials in the Guidelines for Excellence series are posted on their web site, and you can download them for free at http://naaee.org/pages/resourcereview/index.html
Resource Reviews gives you a simple, yet powerful, tool to assess your environmental education programs and materials. Growing out of the Guidelines for Excellence initiative, Resource Reviews is another element in our initiative to build a "culture of quality" in EE, which emphasizes a consistent process to design educationally sound EE materials and programs. There is a small fee for resource reviews depeding upon the complexity of your sbumitted curriculum.
REQUESTS FOR FEEDBACK
National Sustainability Education Standards Available for Comment
The United Nations has declared 2005-2014 the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The U.S. response to the decade is being spearheaded by the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development. The K-12 sector team of the US Partnership, with input from educators in public, private, and pre-service fields, has generated a draft set of national sustainability education standards. The team would greatly value your feedback on these standards.
The standards attempt to define what K-12 students should know and be able to do to be sustainability literate. By its very nature, sustainability education is an interdisciplinary area of study and therefore is intended to be integrated into core content teaching and learning. With ongoing feedback such as yours, the team intends to expand the topics and areas of study, create rubrics to guide assessment of these standards, and align them with national content area standards including science, social studies, humanities, mathematics, and the arts.
To download the draft sustainability education standards, please go to www.uspartnership.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&Itemid=84; then click on "submit your comments" to give us your feedback online.
For more information contact the co-chairs of the K-12 sector team: Gilda Wheeler (Gilda.Wheeler@k12.wa.us) or Kim Rakow Bernier (kim@facingthefuture.org).
LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
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The North American Association for Environmental Education is involved with efforts to make high-quality environmental education part of all education in the United States and has initiated the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education. Here are some of the products and initiatives:
- National EE Certification Initiative - NAAEE and EETAP are collaborating to explore development of a national certification program for environmental educators.
- NCATE/NAAEE Program Standards for the Initial Preparation of Environmental Educators à (in development) to be used by NCATE in their accreditation process of college/university teacher education programs across the country.
- Higher Education Faculty and Program Directory Development - electronic directory of EE programs and faculty in the college and university setting (with the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education) - on-line in 2006.
- Resource Review Program for educational resources - Guidelines for Excellence series, including Environmental Education Materials, Non-formal Environmental Education Programs, Preparation and Professional Development of Environmental Educators, and Excellence in EE-Guidelines for Learning (pre K - 12).
Updated 6/17/09
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