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EENC promotes excellence in professional development and facilitates networking opportunities, inspiring educators to create an environmentally literate citizenry.
No Child Left Inside
About NCLI:
The No Child Left Inside (NCLI) Act recommends including environmental education in reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind) in these ways:
• Provide incentives for state educational agencies to create a State Environmental Literacy Plan for integrating environmental education into their K-12 curriculum to ensure that graduates are environmentally literate.
• Provide funding to help states, schools systems, and environmental education partners to implement the State Environmental Literacy Plan.
Why Now:
An unintended consequence of the No Child Left Behind emphasis on math and reading is that more and more schools are leaving environmental education behind. In the classroom, NCLB causes science teachers to bypass environmental science when it does not appear to relate directly to state tests. Beyond the classroom, teachers may be encouraged to forego valuable, hands-on field investigations rather than take time away from test-related instruction.
Impact:
The No Child Left Inside Act would help address this problem by giving new incentives and support to school systems to provide environmental education. The Act also recognizes that high-quality environmental education often requires students to use math, reading, science, and writing skills.
A number of studies have found that students who take part in environmentally themed lessons do better in core academic subjects.
NCLI-NC:
Having a state Environmental Literacy Plan would make EE content a core learning requirement for graduation, on par with math, language arts, and science.
Ripe for the picking is the opportunity to challenge our young people to create sustainable solutions to increasingly complex environmental issues, including global climate change, air and water pollution and the loss of ecologically sensitive habitat. To be environmentally literate, students must have a solid background in math, reading and science – and in environmental education.
Making environmental literacy a requirement, and providing funding to support it, will ensure that EE programs will become a means of meeting core requirements, rather than an “extra.”
Take Action:
Get your organization(s) to join the NCLI coalition. National leaders in EE, through the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), are shepherding the bill through the legislative process. As they meet with key congressional leaders, they have more clout when they can claim to represent millions of citizens. Numbers matter. Any organizations you belong to – your work, or any clubs or interest groups – get them to join the NCLI coalition. See the NCLI webpage (http://www.cbf.org/Page.aspx?pid=699) for more information.
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Sign the petition for passage of the legislation. Numbers matter. The petition demonstrates the number of individuals--not organizations--who want NCLI passed.
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Contact your congressional representative and our Senators and ask them to sign on a co-sponsor of the NCLI bill.
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Send a letter to the editor.
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Do a press release whenever you have a cool program, and use it as a context for talking about why it’s so important to get kids outside. Then discuss EENC and NCLI to raise awareness in your community. Ask others to join the coalition, sign the petition, and contact the legislators.
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Invite your local, state and congressional officials to your events so they can see the quality of programs you’re providing as well as their constituents’ enthusiasm for your events.
For current information on the status of the NCLI Act in the House and Senate, visit: www.nclicoalition.org/
For the latest on the Coalition, visit the Facebook Page at The No Child Left Inside Coalition.
