KAEE, in partnership with the Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance, is delighted to announce the launch of a dynamic project that has been in the works for many months—a landscape analysis of environmental education efforts in eight southeastern states.
Funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Pisces Foundation, this landscape analysis project will include a comprehensive study of the environmental education already happening on the ground, enabling the states involved to identify gaps and barriers to access that prevent successful implementation in some areas. The final report will also provide recommendations and next steps for increasing environmental literacy efforts in the southeast based on an inventory of model programs and initiatives happening nationwide.
This analysis and tailored state recommendations included in the report will equip organizations conducting environmental and conservation-related work in the southeast with the materials they need to address gaps, allocate resources more effectively, and, ultimately, meet the goal of increasing environmental literacy levels and stewardship behaviors.
“Although there are numerous organizations providing high-quality EE programs across the southeast, most of these are operating independently of one another, and little is being done to harness the collective impact of these programs to create large-scale change in each state or throughout the region,” Hoffman says. “This initiative will allow us to see the current landscape of environmental education in the southeast and help us to focus on larger-scale, capacity building initiatives that extend our impact beyond the local community.”
The final report will serve as the first step to strengthen and improve the nonformal EE community to be able to deliver high-quality programs to students and teachers. The tool will also provide recommendations to systemically infuse environmental principles and concepts in formal school curricula that will aid in increasing and integrating EE into formal education systems.
“We are excited to embark on this work,” Hoffman says. “To have the capacity and funding to bring together and connect the hundreds of organizations doing environmental literacy work across the southeast is a huge opportunity to grow the environmental education movement."
YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE!
SEEA would like to invite Environmental Education program and service providers to participate in this project by filling out the following survey by Friday, April 2nd.
Organizations that respond will be listed as part of a state and regional landscape of environmental education programs and services. This analysis will take a comprehensive look at the scope of environmental education offerings available, trends in the field, and operational shifts. By better understanding the important work being done in the southeast, we can identify gaps and barriers to access, as well as opportunities for service providers to partner with one another to advance our collective efforts toward environmental literacy.
Questions relate to organizational operations, audiences served, programming themes, and services to better understand environmental education and engagement in the southeast. This survey will take approximately 20 minutes to complete. This is a two-part survey. After you complete the first part of the survey, you will have the opportunity to complete a survey of each of your individual programs or to group these into one survey.
Support for this project was provided by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Pisces Foundation.
The Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance is a partnership of the following organizations:
Environmental Education Association of Alabama (EEAA)
League of Environmental Educators in Florida (LEEF)
Environmental Education Alliance (EEA) of Georgia
Kentucky Association for Environmental Education (KAEE)
Mississippi Environmental Education Alliance (MEEA)
Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC)
Environmental Education Association of South Carolina (EEASC)
Tennessee Environmental Education Association (TEEA)