I have been working in the field of environmental and outdoor education and place-based learning in Plumas County, California, for the past 25 years. Plumas County is a rural mountainous region in the northeastern corner of the state. For the past 20 years my work has been tuned specifically toward integrating environmental literacy pedagogy into […]
On April 21, 2020, the California Subject Matter Project (CSMP) held a virtual environmental justice charrette. The charrette brought together CSMP leaders, environmental justice organizers and scholars, and student leaders with the goals of exploring the following questions: What is environmental justice? What does teaching for environmental justice look like in practice? How does it […]
For four years, we at the California State University, Northridge, Science Learning Colaboratory have been working with Los Angeles-area science teachers to develop relevant and engaging lessons and activities that integrate California’s Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) into the California Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) secondary school science curriculum. For three years, we have used […]
Ten Strands launched the San Mateo Environmental Learning Collaborative in 2015 in partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Education. This article is from one of the instructional coaches at the 2019 summer institute. The author, Robyn Stone, offers a unique perspective. “Over 1,000 people were impacted in my community!” exclaimed fifth-grade teacher Andrea […]
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, […]
The excitement was palpable after the self-introductions at the Water, Energy, and Education Alliance (WEEA) leadership roundtable, with each person keenly aware that they were looking at new faces and hearing new voices expressing interest in achieving the same goal: To offer hope to high school students that they can earn a family-sustaining wage in […]
Even though our classroom at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) sat adjacent to a parking lot in the midst of an extensive construction zone, the three-day teacher institute was punctuated multiple times with cries from a hawk perched in one of the few eucalyptus trees nearby. It was a ripe opportunity to think about […]
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 […]
UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science recently released “A Field at Risk: The Impact of COVID-19 on Environmental and Outdoor Science Education.”