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Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy

by
Sarah Brzezinski

Managers are making tremendous progress identifying and tackling environmental issues facing the Chesapeake Bay. However, many of the remaining challenges to a healthier ecosystem are complex, diffuse, and directly in the hands of citizens, including energy use, automobile emissions, and urban and suburban runoff. These issues force individuals, businesses, and communities to make hard decisions, and require a thoughtful public engagement strategy that begins in the schools with our youngest citizens.

The Mid-Atlantic Elementary and Secondary Environmental Literacy Strategy (Strategy) draws on the full strength of the federal government to support state efforts to transform their schools to provide the next generation of citizen stewards the knowledge and skills they need to make informed environmental decisions. The Strategy, which was created in response to President Obama’s Executive Order on Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration, builds upon the long history of federal-state cooperation of the Chesapeake Bay Program to establish shared environmental education goals around four key areas - students, educators, schools, and the environmental education community. These four goals are:

  1. Every student in the region graduates with the knowledge and skills to make informed environmental decisions.
  2. All educators in the region responsible for instruction about or in the environment are provided with sustained professional development, tools, and resources that support their role in providing students with high-quality environmental education.
  3. Every school in the region maintains its buildings, grounds, and operations to support positive environmental and human health outcomes.
  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

Each of these goals is supported by detailed approaches and methods to achieve the specific outcomes.

“This strategy is significant—we now have a broad range of federal agencies all committing to support the states as they develop comprehensive environmental literacy programs,” said Shannon Sprague, co-chair of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Education Workgroup and Environmental Literacy Manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Chesapeake Bay Office. “It better connects teachers and students with federal resources that help them teach and learn about the environment.”

Developed by the Education Workgroup of the Chesapeake Bay Program, the Strategy is endorsed by representatives from federal agencies; state departments of education, environment, and natural resources; and additional local, academic, and nonprofit organizations. Together, these partners have the vision, expertise, and resources to create and support schools that foster citizen stewardship and graduate environmentally literate students.