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It’s been an exciting and productive year for Ten Strands and our donors, partners, and friends. We’d like to take this moment to thank you for your financial support, your ideas and efforts, and most of all for believing in our shared vision of environmental literacy for all.
We’ve made a lot of headway in several initiative areas, please read on for the details!
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ENVIRONMENT-BASED EDUCATION
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Education and the Environment Intiative Curriculum (EEI)
Last year, you helped Ten Strands, in partnership with the Office of Education and the Environment at CalRecycle, go above and beyond to reach our target goals in making environment-based education (EBE) accessible. As of October 2015, over 500,000 California students are using the EEI Curriculum in their classrooms! Here is some feedback teachers have shared with us highlighting the importance of EBE and EEI:
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“I really enjoy opening students’ eyes to the important role of the environment to our well-being—physically, emotionally and spiritually. It was very exciting to see the comprehension bloom.”
~ Steven Cantrell, Mountain View Middle School
"I think that the EEI Curriculum is excellent. It is hands-on and highly engaging for all students. It is relevant and rigorous, while also providing opportunities for communication and collaboration. It is everything that is needed with the Common Core Standards and today's students."
~ Janet Payne, Simi Valley Unified School District
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By March 2015, we’d cumulatively trained and supplied materials to 6,000 teachers. As of October 2015, there were over 9,600 teachers who sought and received environment-based education training and materials—an additional 3,600 in just seven months! Together they taught over 1,300,000 student lessons in 2015, thanks to your support.
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At our annual summer Teacher Ambassador Institute we hosted double the participants this year as compared to last year’s event, and included 45 people from four different cohorts: the Teacher Ambassador Program, the Office of the Education and the Environment, the California Regional Environmental Education Community (CREEC) and the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE). The institute featured deep dives into EEI, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and featured techniques for leading EEI workshops.
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Environmental Learning Collaborative
In a related strand of our program work, the Environmental Learning Collaborative, we launched a pilot project in San Mateo. Working in partnership with the San Mateo County Office of Education, curriculum experts, and local environmental education providers—including Project Wet, Project Learning Tree, Marine Science Institute, Hidden Villa, Pie Ranch, and RecycleWorks—90 San Mateo teachers attended two three-day institutes in July and August.
The San Mateo Environmental Learning Collaborative summer institutes provided teachers with a deeper understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and environment-based education (EBE), and the necessary tools to apply them most effectively in the classroom. Teachers created NGSS-based units of study with professional development experts and local provider partners of environmental education that are currently being implemented this fall, serving over 2,000 students in San Mateo County.
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OPPORTUNITIES IN CALIFORNIA'S EDUCATIONAL LANDSCAPE: STATE-LEVEL WORK
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Standards and Frameworks
In 2013, California took an important step forward with the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). As a result, K–12 science instruction is shifting from a continuous exercise in memorization to an engaging exploration of hands-on inquiry. Science instruction will be placed in the context of the real world–emphasizing observation, critical thinking, and deeper understanding.
As State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER) founder and Ten Strands consultant Dr. Gerald Lieberman noted:
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“The next step in the process of implementing California’s NGSS is the development of a new Science Curriculum Framework. This framework will be the guide that California’s State Board of Education (SBE) and Department of Education provide teachers and publishers to inform them how the state’s new science standards are to be taught in classrooms and presented in newly developed instructional materials.”
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Throughout 2015, Ten Strands, working with Dr. Lieberman, has taken an active role in the Science Curriculum Framework revision process by providing expert guidance and support to ensure that environment-based learning is an integral part of the new science framework. As a result, California’s Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) have been included in the current draft of the framework.
The History-Social Science (HSS) Framework is in final stages of revision before it is submitted to and approved by the State Board of Education for its final public review. Based on Ten Strands' input, the revised draft includes extensive references to the EP&Cs and the EEI Curriculum including an appendix which identifies and describes all of the EEI Curriculum units developed for HSS.
This means that environmental literacy will be built into the fundamental learning experience of all California students, providing critical opportunities for students to examine the interdependence of human societies and natural systems across numerous subjects and throughout their educational journey.
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A Statewide Blueprint for Environmental Literacy
In another statewide initiative, Ten Strands’ support of and participation in Superintendent Torlakson’s Environmental Literacy Task Force (ELTF) culminated in the September release of A Blueprint for Environmental Literacy: Educating Every California Student In, About, and For the Environment. In it, he writes:
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“Fostering environmental literacy gives educators the opportunity to nurture the “whole child,” to learn about and understand nature, and to inspire students to ask meaningful questions about the world around them and their role in it. In addition, the goals of building environmental literacy are closely aligned with other educational priorities for our state. We are at a moment of great positive change in California’s P–12 education system. The California Standards, specifically the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, require students to engage in rigorous thinking and problem solving. Supporting student environmental literacy supports and reinforces the California Standards.”
“The recommendations contained in this report hold great promise for our students, educators, and schools—including many that have already proven effective in California. This Blueprint must become a plan of action, unifying us with focus and purpose as well as concrete next steps. We must invest our very best thinking, our very best efforts, and—above all—our very best people in improving the quality and reach of student education for environmental literacy in California. We must do so for the future of our students and for California’s prosperity, equity, and resource sustainability.”
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The Blueprint is a guide describing how resources for environmental literacy can be improved, expanded, coordinated, and integrated with new academic standards, and how efforts to realize the ambitious goal of achieving environmental literacy for all California students can be supported. It focuses on realizing the Task Force’s overarching vision:
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"Through a broad curriculum that includes expertly delivered classroom and out-of-classroom education by formal and informal educators, students in California will become environmentally literate and able to address current environmental challenges and prevent new ones."
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It has been a rewarding year for Ten Strands—ramping up our activities to develop new partnerships and initiatives and spreading environmental literacy throughout California has been exciting! We are happy to share our success stories with you, and hope you feel that your support of Ten Strands is an investment that positively impacts teachers, students, and California as a whole.
Check out a video of support for Ten Strands
from Congressman Jared Huffman.
Please consider joining us to support environmental literacy for all!
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