Central Valley
Serving Mariposa, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, and Tulare Counties

CREEC is the California Regional Environmental Education Community Network, a new and developing program of the California Department of Education's Office of Environmental Education.

The mission of CREEC is to serve as a conduit between educators and providers of high quality environmental education materials and resources to enhance the environmental literacy of students in all of the 11 regions throughout the state.

To accomplish this mission the CREEC regions will identify providers, evaluate EE curriculum and materials on a regular basis, and develop and maintain websites, listserves, discussion boards, and publish periodic newsletters to disseminate the information and latest news to all educators in their respective areas. The CREEC Network will help you:

• Contact organizations that provide classroom and school-wide presentations, field trips and student research opportunities, curriculum and resource materials.
• Identify workshops, inservices, and professional development opportunities that suit your needs.
• Find links on the WWW to scientifically accurate environmental information, scientists and researchers that correspond with students, and online projects, explorations and curriculum.
• Search for specific topics of interest.
• Locate sources of grant monies, contests and classroom projects.
• Keep informed of the latest news on the environment and education.
• Post questions, offer things you have discovered, and carry on discussions with educators and providers throughout the network in your region.
• Review environmental curriculum using a filtering system to insure that materials are unbiased and appropriate.
• Learn about new EE job openings.

Region 7 includes the counties of: Merced, Mariposa, Madera, Fresno, Kings and Tulare in California's central San Joaquin Valley. These counties, that contribute most of the agricultural production in the state, are experiencing fairly rapid growth that is contributing to urban sprawl. There is a need for Environmental Education that addresses the accompanying issues of air and water quality, housing, transportation, farmland encroachment, loss of habitat, climate change, etc.

CREEC Region 7 is governed by the Board of Directors of the Central California Science Education Leadership Association (CCSELA) an affiliate of the National Science Education Leadership Association (NSELA) (http://www.nsela.org). CCSELA was formed approximately 20 years ago to bring together science specialists, formal and nonformal educators to network and share information and resources. For 12 of the past 14 years, CCSELA has sponsored a weekend annual Environmental Educators Retreat at Lake Sequoia near the giant redwoods in Kings Canyon National Park for teachers in the central valley. The CCSELA President acts as the fiscal agent for the CREEC Region 7 Network.

Please feel free to contact the Region 7 coordinators or Region 7 Board Members with any questions, concerns or comments.