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Early Childhood Environmental Education Rating Scale

The Early Childhood Environmental Education Rating Scale (NAAEE 2011), authored by Yash Bhagwanji, provides a collaborative tool for educators and others to discuss their early childhood environmental education program goals, consider strengths and areas of needed improvement, and chart a future direction for development. The Early Childhood Environmental Education Rating Scale is easy to use while also encouraging deep discussions about program philosophy, design and implementation. Building off of NAAEE’s Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence, it is a much welcomed addition to the early childhood environmental education tool kit.

 The Early Childhood Environmental Education Rating Scale (ECEERS) is a formative evaluation tool designed to assist programs in improving their environmental education curriculum.

Whether you work with a center-based child development or family day care center, this tool can help you make needed improvements in the quality of activities, experiences, interactions, and instruction concerning the world of nature and its value in society. Environmental education centers, too, may benefit through improvements in curriculum that better respond to the abilities, interests, learning styles, and motivations for learning of young children.

 Based on six key characteristics of high quality early childhood environmental education programs (North American Association for Environmental Education, 2010), the procedures for using the rating scale emphasize a collaborative approach in evaluation, through the sharing of differing perspectives (as represented by program board members, administrative officials, teaching staff, family members of the children participating in the program, and community partners), and the development of consensus in the rating of each specific guideline or recommendation. The rating scale is designed as a self-assessment tool requiring open and honest conversations. The process can be personally satisfying for the individual team members involved and, with ongoing evaluation utilizing the rating scale, can lead to program success over time.  Download your copy of the PDF:

Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence

Early Childhood Environmental Education Rating Scale

The US Department of Education initiated the Green Ribbon Schools program, with 30+ states participating.  2012 is a pilot year for the program that will recognize up to 50 schools across the country.  Each participating state, and the District of Columbia, can nominate up to four schools. Although each state department of education follows US Department of Education guidelines, states create their own program requirements and application form.

The US Department of Education lists useful resources for the Green Ribbon Schools program. We are proud to note that Excellence in Environmental Education: Guidelines for Learning (K-12) was identified as one of these resources.

We are also proud to note that a majority of the states are referencing Excellence in Environmental Education: Guidelines for Learning (K-12) in their application materials, encouraging schools to use the Guidelines as a tool for environmental literacy.  Department of Education application materials that include the Guidelines:

Washington, DC
Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)
California
Colorado
Florida
Idaho
Illinois
Iowa
Hawaii
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Michigan
Minnesota
New Jersey
New York
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin

Download Your Copy of the Guidelines Each of the Guidelines is posted here as a PDF and available for free downloading. More information on each of the Guidelines is available under its topic.

Excellence in EE: Guidelines for Learning (K-12)

EE Materials: Guidelines for Excellence

Guidelines for the Preparation and Professional Development

Nonformal EE Programs: Guidelines for Excellence

Early Childhood EE Programs: Guidelines for Excellence

We all know that teachers need to use their state academic standards.  We also know that environmental education content and skills are well-represented in most state academic standards.  It's just a matter of finding the links. One way of making these links explicit is to use Excellence in Environmental Education: Guidelines for Learning (K-12) as the framework and to create a crosswalk with your state academic standards.

Aligning your state academic standards to the EE Guidelines for Learning (K-12) will help teachers and other educators design and implement a comprehensive, cohesive, standards-based environmental education curriculum. It will help educators map out the best ways of infusing environmental education throughout the school year.

Additionally, this crosswalk can be a useful first step in the development of your state Environmental Literacy Plan (NCLI). Using the EE Guidelines for Learning (K-12)as your framework, you will identify the state academic standards that support environmental education. Importantly, you will also identify the gaps! This can give you a road map for working with your state department of education.

To provide examples, attached are crosswalks between the K-12 EE Guidelines for Learning and the state academic standards for Oregon, Maine and Texas. Let us know if you have created a crosswalk and we will share it here too.

See the other posts that align the K-12 Learner Guidelines with the Ocean Literacy Principles and the Climate Literacy Principles.

STATE CROSSWALKS

Oregon:

EE and Oregon Achievement Standards Crosswalk

Maine:

Maine 4th Grade Crosswalk

Maine 8th Grade Crosswalk

Maine 11th Grade Crosswalk

Texas DRAFT Crosswalks:
Science Elementary School Crosswalk

Science Middle School Crosswalk

Science High School Crosswalk

Social Studies Elementary School Crosswalk

Social Studies Middle School Crosswalk

Social Studies High School Crosswalk