It’s National Environmental Education Week!
Today we are highlighting resources developed by STEM Next partners and others to create, improve and promote high-quality environmental education in and out of school. Two of our key priorities are to champion and help build systems of support for STEM learning. Resources like these videos, toolkits, guides, and stories help ensure that all young people can experience hands-on environmental education, get excited, and continue to build their knowledge, capacity and confidence as budding problem-solvers and critical thinkers. Please share with your own networks!
- The Afterschool Alliance has created an environmental education social media toolkit and pulled together environmental education resources from the North American Association for Environmental Education, WGBH Boston, and the National Environmental Education Foundation. The Afterschool Alliance is also organizing an Earth Day tweetchat on April 22 at 2PM ET with the hashtag #AfterschoolEE. Sign up for the tweetchat
- The Statewide Network for New Jersey’s Out-of-School Communities (NJSACC)’s Celebrate Afterschool! Outdoors in the Garden State toolkit connects children and nature through innovative afterschool programming.
- In a video created by the Nebraska Beyond School Bells network, Lindsay Rogers of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission comments on the power of environmental education after school to develop critical thinking skills even in very young children.
- Boston Afterschool & Beyond’s summer initiative features longtime partnerships with Thompson Island Outward Bound and Hale Reservation. To learn more, watch the 2011 and 2015 videos
- In the Explore the Bay program, Providence, RI middle school students explore Narragansett Bay, learn about sandy and rocky beaches and get out on Save the Bay’s boat to check lobster traps, do water chemistry experiments and learn about seals and other bay inhabitants. Explore the Bay is a partnership between the Providence Afterschool Alliance and Save the Bay.
