“The students of today will be the architects of future climate strategies and our champions for achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets.” ~State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson 2015 was a big year for environmental and sustainability education, and a critical pivot point. Superintendent Torlakson’s Environmental Literacy Task Force had spent all of 2014 putting […]
The first weekend of December marked a high-point in my work as a California Regional Environmental Education Community (CREEC) coordinator. Thanks to the support of Ten Strands and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, I attended my first CREEC Professional Learning Conference at San Luis Obispo’s Rancho El Chorro Conference & Retreat Center. During the time we […]
The following are excerpts from the keynote address Terry Tamminen, CEO of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, gave at the California Science Teachers Association 2017 Conference in Sacramento on Friday, October 13, 2017. The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF) is working around the globe on species protection and conservation issues, climate change, and empowering indigenous and local […]
We couldn’t have asked for a better setting for our environmental literacy retreat. Thanks to Ten Strands and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, regional site directors from the California History–Social Science Project had the opportunity to gather in mid August in Pacifica to think over how best to integrate environmental literacy into K–12 history–social science (HSS) […]
The State Board of Education (SBE) officially adopted the EP&Cs (Environmental Principles and Concepts) in 2004 and they are an important piece of the curricular expectations for all California students. Teachers can introduce these EP&Cs through their many connections with the three dimensions of the CA NGSS, and by focusing instruction on the environment of […]
In her blog post earlier this year, Ten Strands Board member Sheila Nahi provided an unequivocal yes to the question of whether we are still in a ‘Goldilocks moment’ to achieve environmental literacy in California, as first posed by Ten Strands Founder and President Will Parish in July 2015. With the active implementation of A […]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 23, 2017 Contact: Environmental Literacy Steering Committee Karen Cowe, Project Director Email: kcowe@tenstrands.org California Public-Private Partnership Honored for Work in Advancing Environmental Literacy California’s Environmental Literacy Steering Committee was honored with a top national award yesterday for its model approach to infusing environmental literacy into K–12 education statewide. The Committee received […]
Back in April I had the opportunity to talk about the importance of environmental literacy in front of the California Legislative Black Caucus, along with Will Parish from Ten Strands and Gina Fromer from the Trust for Public Land. My presentation focused on how students in schools with programs that use the local environment as […]