Background Information

Thank you for taking the time to review the North Carolina Environmental Literacy Plan! We value your interest in and enthusiasm for providing North Carolina students with a high quality, well-rounded education that will enable them to understand and address complex environmental problems affecting their daily lives.

This form is designed to gather public input on the first draft of the NC Environmental Literacy Plan. You will be asked to provide constructive feedback on each component of the plan, including things that you might find missing, that you would remove or would otherwise change. You will also be able to share your thoughts on possible barriers to implementation of the plan in your community and ways to overcome those barriers. When appropriate, please cite page number and paragraph number related to comments.

Over the past two years, the NC Department of Environment & Natural Resources, the NC Department of Public Instruction and numerous partners have been working together to craft an environmental literacy plan for North Carolina. The plan is one way in which North Carolina is responding to proposed federal legislation to enhance environmental literacy among public school students. It will ensure that environmental education is integrated throughout North Carolina's PreK-12 formal education system. To qualify for future federal funding for environmental literacy, the plan will have to be adopted as policy by the North Carolina State Board of Education.

The plan describes how our state educational system will prepare students to understand, analyze, and address the major environmental challenges facing North Carolina and the country. There are four main components, each one outlining specific strategies for ensuring that North Carolina students graduate as environmentally literate citizens. These components include state educational standards and graduation requirements as they relate to environmental literacy, teacher professional development in environmental education, model school grounds and facilities, and strategies for measuring the environmental literacy of students.

A copy of the North Carolina Environmental Literacy Plan can be found at http://www.eenorthcarolina.org/ncenvliteracyplan.html.

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