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Have Your Voice Heard During the Public Comment Period for the Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary

by
Sarah Brzezinski

The rich history of support for environmental education in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed was continued on Tuesday, November 2nd, with the launch of a public comment period for the federal government’s Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy! The strategy, which was called for in President Obama’s Executive Order 13508 Strategy for Protecting and Restoring the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, was developed to ensure that federal programs and resources are coordinated, informed by state priorities, and fully available to and used by state partners.

Executive Order 13508 acknowledges that although the federal government should assume a strong leadership role in the restoration of the Bay, success depends on a collaborative effort involving state and local governments, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and the region’s residents. This has long been the goal of environmental literacy planning and implementation in the region, and sharpening this focus on collaboration is critical to successful federal engagement because PK-12 education is fundamentally a state and local responsibility. With this in mind, the federal Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy is designed to build upon and support the important work that states throughout the region are doing to create exemplary environmental education policy.

The Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy is constructed around four goals, and their associated outcomes and strategies, which outline the interdependent actions that the Mid-Atlantic education community will pursue to achieve the vision of developing environmental literacy in the region:

  • Goal 1: Every student in the region graduates with the knowledge and skills to make informed environmental decisions
  • Goal 2: All educators in the region responsible for instruction about or in the environment have access to sustained professional development opportunities, tools, and resources that support their efforts to provide students with high‐quality environmental education
  • Goal 3: Every school in the region maintains its buildings, grounds, and operations to support positive environmental and human health outcomes
  • Goal 4: The education community in the region functions in a unified manner and coordinates with key national, regional, and state programs to represent the full suite of information and opportunities available for PK-12 audiences

“The four goals—and the supporting outcomes and strategies—that the draft describes outline the interdependent actions that the mid-Atlantic education community will take in support of environmental literacy,” said Nicholas DiPasquale, director of the Chesapeake Bay Program. “It bodes well for this effort that there is so much collaboration among federal and state agencies and other partners, and I’m delighted with the direction the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Education Workgroup is headed.”

Public comments, suggestions, and questions related to the Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy (available here) should be submitted via email to cbtraining@noaa.gov by December 19. During this public comment period, you can have your voice heard and show your support for Environmental Literacy efforts in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed!