In May 2026, the California State Board of Education adopted its Portrait of a Learner, a statewide framework that connects curriculum, instruction, assessment, and student supports around a common purpose while emphasizing engaging, relevant learning opportunities. Importantly, the final framework integrates environmental literacy and environmental sustainability across two of seven competencies. This signals a meaningful shift toward recognizing environmental literacy and sustainability as a core part of student success.
This outcome reflects sustained engagement over many months from a statewide network. In November 2025, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE) invited public input on the Portrait, which Ten Strands shared widely with California Environmental Literacy Initiative members and our broader network. From November through January, Ten Strands stayed in close coordination with CCEE to track development. In March and April 2026, Ten Strands submitted formal feedback on the draft, elevating the call for deeper integration of environmental literacy and sustainability.
The Portrait of a Learner consists of seven aspirational Competencies. The two that integrate environmental literacy and sustainability are the following:
- Critical Thinker and Problem Solver — Builds on a strong academic foundation to ask critical questions, carefully analyze information, and develop creative solutions to complex challenges using imagination and problem-solving skills. Develops financial, environmental, data, and digital literacies, including AI literacy, to evaluate information and make informed decisions in a rapidly changing world.
- Community Contributor — Contributes to the common good through active, informed engagement in civic affairs, recognizing rights and responsibilities, and improving the welfare of others by attending to the needs of people and their shared environments. Participates in democratic processes and takes positive action to support the health, environmental sustainability, and well-being of communities and ecosystems, locally and globally.
This inclusion moves environmental literacy concretely into the definition of what it means to be a prepared graduate in California. It also reinforces and complements the Environmental Principles & Concepts (EP&Cs), deepening a layer of system alignment that connects curriculum, instruction, and student outcomes across the TK–12 system.
Over the past ten-plus years, Ten Strands has played a central role in embedding the EP&Cs into the fabric of California education. Working in close partnership with Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Lieberman of the State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER), the EP&Cs were integrated into six content frameworks: science, history-social science, health, arts, world languages, and mathematics.
Ten Strands also sponsored SB 720, signed into law in 2018, which declared the EP&Cs fundamental to the definition of environmental literacy in California and required their integration into statewide curriculum frameworks. As Dr. Lieberman has written, the EP&Cs offer a practical framework for weaving environmental thinking into core instruction, not as an add-on, but as a foundation.
With the EP&Cs now fully embedded in California’s curriculum frameworks, and environmental literacy and sustainability now explicitly named in the Portrait of a Learner, the policy foundation is further strengthened. Taken together, these two pillars leave no ambiguity: environmental and climate education is not optional enrichment. It is part of what California has defined as a well-rounded, college- and career-ready education for every student.
On May 12, 2026, the State Board unanimously adopted the framework, and the final version was published on June 12, 2026.
