Districts
School districts located throughout California are participating in pilot programs to develop district environmental literacy plans that can be replicated in other districts. These plans will infuse standards- and environment-based learning as a foundational component of their students’ K–12 educational experience in science, history–social science, health, and other subjects. The pilot districts include Alameda, Pajaro Valley, Petaluma, and Campbell in the Bay Area; Montebello and Paramount in Los Angeles County; Rialto and Fontana in San Bernardino County; and Anaheim in Orange County.
Partnerships
We are partnering with several highly experienced organizations in this work including the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, the State Education and Environment Roundtable, Youth Outside, and Inverness Research.
At the regional level, we are collaborating with three organizations to support the work of these ten pilot districts: ChangeScale in the Bay Area, TreePeople in Los Angeles, and Inside the Outdoors in Orange and San Bernardino Counties.
We are engaging a wide array of community-based organizations, such as nonformal providers, local government agencies, and others with environmental and educational expertise in the district planning process. These organizations are an important component of our goal to create opportunities for classroom, campus, community and field based experiences that integrate with the districtwide environmental literacy plans currently under development.
Resources
Tools and resources are being developed that will be shared with school districts and county offices of education throughout the state. An example is the Local Control Accountability Plan Toolkit for Science and Environmental Literacy.
