GETTING TO KNOW...Project Learning Tree

Using trees and forests as “windows to the world,” Project Learning Tree (PLT), hosted by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, has since its founding in 1976 reached 138 million students, increasing their understanding of the environment and actions they can take to conserve it.

Like environmental education at its core, Project Learning Tree helps students learn how to think, not what to think, about complex environmental issues, forever aiming towards its vision of “a future where the next generation values the natural world and has the knowledge and skills necessary to make informed decisions and take responsible actions to sustain forests and the broader environment.”

Made up of three equally important components—high-quality instructional materials for grades PreK-12; carefully designed professional development; and an extensive distribution and support network—PLT was designed to gain the confidence of the education community. “Educators would have to like it, trust it, and use it.” At the same time, its creators wanted to ensure that the curriculum was “balanced, fair, and accurate” and that it “encouraged students to consider all sides and factors when making decisions about the environment.”

PLT has long been recognized as one of the premier environmental education programs in the world, and this September, PLT’s “Carbon & Climate” curriculum for grades six through eight was named a Learning® magazine 2020 Teachers’ Choice Award for the Classroom winner. (PLT’s “Energy in Ecosystems” for grades three through five and “Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood” have also received Teachers’ Choice Awards for the Classroom.)

Teachers, parents, and EE practitioners of all stripes are invited to review PLT’s many free online resources, from STEM strategies to sample lesson plans to family activities. Activities are “practical, hands-on, and fun, and aligned with state and national academic standards, including the Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core State Standards, College, Career, and Civic Life Framework, Head Start, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children,” the PLT website explains.

KAEE has served as the state sponsor and coordinator of Kentucky PLT since 2012. Want to learn how you can become certified to use PLT curriculum or how we can help you host a PLT workshop in your area? Visit our PLT webpage here!

PLT at a Glance
Mission
Project Learning Tree advances environmental literacy and promotes stewardship through excellence in environmental education, professional development, and curriculum resources that use trees and forests as windows on the world.

Vision
Project Learning Tree is committed to creating a future where the next generation values the natural world and has the knowledge and skills necessary to make informed decisions and take responsible actions to sustain forests and the broader environment.

​Goals 
Provide students with the awareness, appreciation, skills, and commitment to address environmental issues

Enable students to apply scientific processes and higher order thinking skills to resolve environmental problems

Help students acquire an appreciation for and tolerance of diverse viewpoints on environmental issues and develop attitudes and actions based on analysis and evaluation of the available information

Encourage creativity, originality, and flexibility to resolve environmental problems and issues

​​Inspire and empower students to become responsible, productive, and participatory members of societyBy Leigh Cocanougher

STRATEGIC PLAN SERIES: PART I9/4/2019
0 Comments

 Advancing Environmental Literacy
This July, the Kentucky Association for Environmental Education’s Board of Directors approved the organizations’s new Strategic Plan, a plan with the vision of “a sustainable world where environmental and social responsibility drive individual and institutional choices” and the mission to “increase environmental knowledge and community engagement in Kentucky through the power of environmental education.”

To see the vision through, KAEE has its sights set on several goals, including advancing environmental literacy; increasing public support for and investment in the field of EE; reaching broader audiences; better telling the story not only of what we are doing but also why EE is so crucial for the future of Kentucky; and cultivating collective impact to create a stronger and more inclusive EE movement. 

Just a month after the new plan’s adoption, progress is under way. In this first of a series of stories about the ways we are making said progress, we will focus on our organization’s plan to advance environmental literacy, not only in our own state but in the southeastern region—and across the entire country—as well. 

One of the many ways KAEE works to advance environmental knowledge is through facilitator trainings. Held all around the state, these trainings allow teachers, nonformal educators, and others to become certified by KAEE to host their own educator trainings in one of our curriculum programs: Project Learning Tree, Project WET, Project Wild, and Leopold Education Project. Whether they are working in the classroom, at a nature center, in a university, in the state government, or elsewhere around the state, our facilitators create a powerful network of educators who not only offer environmental education training to their community but help propel environmental literacy across the commonwealth.

“KAEE Facilitators are an amazing group of educators,” says Brittany Wray, KAEE Education Director. “They’re passionate, dedicated, and determined that everyone deserves environmental education. They are at the heart of the mission of our organization—delivering environmental education to Kentuckians.” 

Another means of propelling environmental literacy in Kentucky is met through KAEE’s educator workshops. In June 2019, two such events took place—an intensive, three-day EE Bootcamp, where participants connected environmental education (EE), conservation, and natural resources with academic standards; and the annual Outdoor Learning Symposium, where more than 40 educators, administrators, and EE professionals from around the state spent the day learning how to effectively engage their students in outdoor and environmental education. 

Through both facilitator trainings and educator workshops, KAEE is able to offer professional development opportunities directly to those “boots on the ground” who are working to advance EE in their own way. 

Increasing environmental knowledge in Kentucky, though, is an ongoing task, so KAEE has plans (many already underway!) for meeting this goal using new and engaging methods. Want to learn more about them? Stay tuned for the second part of our Strategic Plan series!