It's that time of year again - conference registration time! Register now for early bird deals and join us at Agape for a fun weekend of professional development, informative field trips and workshops, and great networking. We have a new website and membership management service this year, so registration will work a little differently than you may be used to. In years past, you received a membership discount code for the conference. You don't need a code this year! When you register, the system automatically recognizes you as a member if your membership is up to date and you use the same email address that you've used on the EENC website in the past. (You may be prompted for a password if you have not yet logged into the new site!) Then simply choose the membership registration type that applies to you from the options on the registration form. Visit the conference page for more information about the conference and to download a copy of the detailed conference registration packet. The packet provides specifics on registration types, lodging options, and field trip/workshop prices, times, and descriptions. Early bird registration ends July 17th, so make plans to register soon for the best price! If you have any questions about the registration process, please contact Shannon Culpepper, registration co-chair and your EENC president elect. Hope to see you at Agape!

Conference proposal season is officially over! The requests for session and research symposium proposals are now closed. Thanks to everyone who submitted a conference proposal for the 2017 conference at Agape! The sessions our members provide are what make our conference great. Look out for an e mail soon with news about whether you proposal was accepted or not!

Want to present at the Environmental Educators of North Carolina conference at Agape Center for Environmental Education this September? Get your proposals in soon! Proposals for both regular conference sessions and the research symposium are due Monday, May 15. Add your voice to the conference - hope to see you there!

EENC offers scholarships to help people attend the conference. Need some help to come to this year's conference? We're now accepting conference scholarship applications! Scholarship applications are due May 20. Good luck!

Be a part of the 2017 conference at Agape Center for Environmental Education! We are now accepting proposals for conference sessions and the research symposium. All proposals are due May 22!

Above: Will Freund and Chip Freund at Olympic National Park in 2022 (left), and at the premiere of the Blue Glacier: Then and Now project on July 28th, 2023 (right). EENC Congratulates Communications Board Chair Will Freund and his father and former Board Member Chip Freund on the release of their new documentary film and photography project, Blue Glacier: Then and Now. The project documents the effect of climate change on Olympic National Park’s Blue Glacier over the past four decades through the lenses of landscape photographer Chip and documentary filmmaker Will, resulting in a poignant visual call to climate action. EENC is lucky to boast a membership – and Board – for whom environmental education is intrinsically tied to conservation and advocacy, and we can’t wait to see what’s next for this climate storytelling father-son duo. The Blue Glacier: Then and Now film and photography exhibit premiered at the Cary Arts Center on July 28th, 2023, and is on display until the end of August. The film is being evaluated for a number of documentary film awards, and has recently been submitted for inclusion to the New York WILD Film Festival, the American Conservation Film Festival, the RiverRun International Film Festival, the Colorado Environmental Film Festival, and the Shredlandia Mountain Film Festival. Read the story of the Blue Glacier: Then and Now project below, originally published on the NC Science Trail blog. Above: EENC Board Members past and present at the premiere of Blue Glacier: Then and Now. Left to right: 2023 President Amy Juliana, 2023 Communications Chair Will Freund, former Board Member Chip Freund, former Board Member Renee Strnad. Blue Glacier: Then and Now When you hear the word “glacier” what comes to mind? Probably something along the lines of a big chunk of snow and ice flowing down a mountain, and you’re not wrong. However, they are so much more than that. Glaciers are the spring of life for the valley below and one of our planet’s key indicators of a changing climate. In 2022, father-son duo Chip and Will Freund set out to document how one specific glacier has changed in our lifetime for their project, Blue Glacier Then & Now. Chip is a professional landscape photographer based in Raleigh, North Carolina and Will is an environmental documentary filmmaker based in Greensboro, NC. This story starts in 1982 when Chip was just 18 years old, and he was spending his summer working for the Student Conservation Association doing backcountry trail work in Olympic National Park in Washington State. During that summer, Chip took dozens of pictures of the environment he was working in, including the mighty Blue Glacier that feeds the park’s Hoh River. With all the talk around climate change these days, Chip set out to tell his climate story by heading back to Olympic National Park 40 years to the week of when he was there last to recreate the photos he took and show how the Blue Glacier had been affected by climate change in the intervening four decades. “Despite the heartbreaking loss of ice the project documents, I am filled with gratitude. Gratitude to the many supporters that helped bring the project to life. Gratitude for the opportunity to return to such a beautiful wild place, and gratitude to have shared a place so special to me with my family. By sharing personal climate change stories, like mine, I am hopeful that we can bridge the divide in our society and begin to work together to address the causes and impacts to our changing planet.” – Chip Freund, Landscape Photographer As a filmmaker, Will is so excited to help tell this story, especially since it gives him the chance to work alongside his dad. Coming off the heels of his last film, Connected By Water, Will is truly passionate about sharing personal stories as a conduit to talk about climate change. Through these photos, film, and conversations, Chip and Will hope to shed some light on the fact that the Blue Glacier has lost over a third of its ice in the last 40 years. Chip’s photos are currently on exhibition at the Cary Arts Center in Cary, North Carolina through the end of August 2023. You can view the trailer for the film, Blue Glacier Then & Now on YouTube.

In 2022, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) initiated the process of revising our state’s science standards. During the last K-12 Science Standard Course of Study revision in 2010, many elements of environmental literacy were incorporated into the standards, so EENC knew it was essential to engage our community in this process to protect and strengthen that connection. At key points throughout the revision process, EENC hosted collaborative review and working sessions for educators, provided synthesized summaries of the proposed standards, and mobilized our community across the state to provide feedback during public review periods – together, these efforts amplified and centered the importance of environmental education in classroom science. The updated standards were finalized and approved during the DPI and North Carolina Board of Education’s July Board Meeting, and now, EENC is taking action once again to disseminate information about the standards, and to provide accessible, relevant support and resources to our community of educators preparing to implement the new standards in Fall of 2024. Now available from EENC is one such resource: our At-A-Glance for Environmental Education and the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, which summarizes and spotlights noteworthy standards in K-12 Science that are potentially aligned with environmental education topics and themes. The EENC team is pleased to report that environmental education is present now more than ever in our public science standards, including an expanded presence across the life science and earth science disciplines at all grade levels. Find the At-A-Glance Document Here. We encourage both nonformal and formal educators across North Carolina to review the new standards in their entirety, as well as the associated DPI resources, including the Crosswalks and Installation Timeline. Later this fall, expect additional resources from EENC highlighting key changes in differences between the 2010 and 2023 standards, tools for navigating the standards, and suggestions for implementing the standards with environmental education in mind. Find the standards announcement from DPI on their website, and included in full below for reference. On May 5, 2022, the NC State Board of Education granted permission for NCDPI to move forward with the review and revision of the K-12 Science standards, per SCOS-012. The manual was revised at the April 2023 State Board of Education meeting. The Office of Academic Standards’ Science team is excited to announce that the 2023 K-12 Science Standards were approved by the State Board of Education at their July 6th, 2023 meeting. The work was completed under the processes and protocols outlined in the NC Standard Course of Study Manual. The process included feedback from focus groups in each State Board region, one-on-one interviews and over 14,000 responses to surveys. Nearly 60 different professional educators from across NC districts, charter schools, and institutions of higher education helped review the response data and revise the standards. Thank you to everyone who participated in the review and revision process. The adoption of the 2023 K-12 Science Standards is the end of the first stage in the process, with the focus now moving to the “installation” stage. Over the 2023-2024 school year, NCDPI will be working alongside leaders from PSUs to ensure all stakeholders are aware of the new standards, have opportunities to review changes from the 2009 standards, and prepare for the new standards to be implemented beginning with the 2024-2025 school year. Please note, the current 2009 Science standards will remain in place for classroom instruction and assessment for the 2023-2024 school year.

The NC Department of Environmental Quality, the NC Department of Public Instruction, and EENC are seeking your input on the revision of North Carolina’s Environmental Literacy Plan. The plan serves as a guiding document for advancing environmental literacy for K-12 students across the many places and spaces where EE happens. Its goals include preparing students for STEM-based and other careers, improving academic achievement through place-based and authentic learning experiences, and providing students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to make informed environmental decisions. The plan covers five main priorities: K-12 Education School Grounds and Facilities Placed-Based and Outdoor Learning Community Collaborations and Partnerships Educator Professional Development. We've been working to revise this plan over the past 18 months with a small group of advisors, and now, we need your help to review the final draft! Please complete this survey by the end of the day on Sunday, June 18 to share your feedback on the revision of the NC Environmental Literacy Plan. Contact Lauren Pyle with any questions.