Note: Since the time this article was written, the world has focused on facing the COVID-19 global pandemic. As governments and citizens shift rapidly to save lives, we can see opportunities to build connections and innovate solutions that will also serve us in addressing climate change. Scientific and environmental literacy are more important than ever, […]
In September 2007, I enrolled my son in kindergarten at our local elementary school. I have a clear memory of a parent-teacher association meeting where I spontaneously asked about the potential for installing a garden on school grounds. “We don’t have a hose bib,” they answered, “so it won’t work.” End of story. By my […]
The term confluence typically relates to the coming together of two or more streams or rivers. In California’s ever-evolving educational landscape, we can apply it to the coming together and weaving of instructional strategies and priorities that represent an unprecedented opportunity to expand the development of environmental literacy for all California students. This was not […]
“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 […]
UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science recently released “A Field at Risk: The Impact of COVID-19 on Environmental and Outdoor Science Education.”