By PLT Staff

Climate changes, depletion of natural resources, air and water problems, and other environmental challenges are pressing and complex issues that threaten human health, economic development, and national security. Finding wide-spread agreement about what specific steps we need to take to solve these problems is difficult. Environmental education will help ensure our nation’s children have the knowledge and skills necessary to address these complex issues.

For more than three decades, environmental education has been a growing part of effective instruction in America’s schools. Project Learning Tree began in the early 1970s to teach young people about the environment and help them become responsible environmental decision makers by getting them to think about their role and relationship with the environment (see "An Historical Account of the Beginnings of PLT"). Over the life of the program, more than half a million teachers have received training in how to use PLT with their students from PreK through college-age students, in programs ranging from stand alone activities, to environmental science and preservice methods courses, to an interdisciplinary approach that uses the environment as an integrating theme throughout the entire curriculum. Yet, environmental education is facing a national crisis. Many schools are being forced to scale back or eliminate environmental programs. Fewer and fewer students are able to take part in related classroom instruction and field investigations, however effective or popular. State and local administrators and teachers point to two factors behind this recent and disturbing shift: the unintended consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), and a lack of funding for these critical programs.
 
One unintentional consequence of the law’s testing requirements has been that many schools have abandoned environmental education programs to invest more time and resources in state tests.  Teachers have to forego valuable, hands-on field investigations rather than take time away from test-related instruction.

The American public recognizes that the environment is already one of the dominant issues of the 21st century. A National Science Foundation panel echoed that conviction, noting in 2003 that “in the coming decades, the public will more frequently be called upon to understand complex environmental issues, assess risk, evaluate proposed environmental plans and understand how individual decisions affect the environment at local and global scales. Creating a scientifically informed citizenry requires a concerted, systemic approach to environmental education…”

The reauthorization of NCLB this year provides Congress with the opportunity to make changes that will strengthen the Act and better prepare students for real-world challenges and careers. NCLB must provide schools and school systems with the incentives, flexibility, and authority to develop and deliver environmental education programs. We can achieve this by getting members of Congress to support the No Child Left Inside Act.

The No Child Left Inside Act was introduced last year by Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland to include environmental education in the final version of NCLB. Their legislation, which would amend the NCLB Act, provides funding for environmental education programs and teacher professional development in states with K-12 environmental literacy plans.  It does not add any new mandates or testing requirements.  Read a Summary of the No Child Left Inside Act.

In the House of Representatives, the NCLI Act was included in the draft of the NCLB reauthorization.  The action is now in the Senate, where the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will soon take up education funding as part of its effort to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Law.  Senator Edward Kennedy, chairman of the committee, plans to introduce a No Child Left Behind bill by April.

What can you do?
• Write or call your senators and ask them to support the No Child Left Inside Act.  See a sample letter you can consider using.
• Go to www.eeNCLB.org to learn more about the No Child Left Inside Act.  The website includes a link to allow you to send an email to members of Congress as well as other useful tools, such as guidelines on writing a letter to your local newspaper’s editor.

Take Action Now!