Every three years, the Board of Directors defines our organizational priorities through a strategic plan to help guide our work. EENC's four main focus areas for 2021-2024 are:
Across all four of these priorities, we also identified two cross-cutting underpinnings:
Prioritizing Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Considering a broad definition of environmental education - beyond classrooms and EE Centers
The board and staff have developed a living action plan that guides our efforts achieve this. Read our full strategic plan here to learn more about our plans for the next three years.
We have an amazing community at EENC! Time and again, the thing we hear our members love most is the other people they can meet and connect with. To help you build your network, we love to post stories about educators in our state.
Our interview today features Chimney Rock Management Director Emily Walker, a long time EENC member, supporter, and former board member. While you might know Chimney Rock for its views, read on to learn more about their EE efforts!
EENC: How did you get involved with Chimney Rock? EW: I came to the Chimney Rock with my sister in 2005 looking for a summer job. We had our hearts set on moving to the Western NC Mountains, but I was hesitant to leave my position as a wildlife tech in Atlanta. The opportunity to interpret the incredible diversity of the park's resources with guests from around the world was reason enough to make the move. It's been a long summer - 16 years!
EENC: Why does Chimney Rock Management prioritize environmental education?EW: Chimney Rock Management's mission is to Create Elevated Experiences. We aim to do this by helping to create connections between people and the natural world. Environmental education is one of the best ways we can help foster these relationships. We prioritize our ee programs by supporting our efforts with other revenue streams in order to make it sustainable. We also try to incorporate some sort of interpretive or educational activity into any event or group function that we host.
EENC: What projects or programs are you working on that particularly inspire you? EW: We created a program in 2018 where our naturalists provide programs at the school three times over the course of a school year and then the school has a culminating field trip to the Park. We had to put this on hold, but I am particularly excited to see it manifest. The pilot school is a local Title I school where many of the students may have not had the opportunity to visit before. We are also currently working on more informal interpretation opportunities to reach more visitors by having pop-up stations throughout the Park. I think this opportunity will help us to reach an audience that may not have come to the more structured programs due to commitments or interests.
EENC: What goals do you have for your organization or programs within the EE field? EW: Our goal is to grow the recognition of our ee opportunities so that we can have a greater impact. We want to help create a bond between local students and the area. Our hope is that if we can help them to understand how incredible of a place they live that they'll work to protect the resource throughout their lives.
EENC: What’s your favorite spot to be in the park this summer? EW: The Skyline Trail! It's quiet and gives you the feeling that you have the Park to yourself. It's an awesome trail that provides both a shady forest hike and some awesome views.
In addition to all this amazing EE work, Chimney Rock is a Guardian Sponsor for the upcoming conference. EENC is so grateful for their support!!
P.S. Want to share your story? EENC welcomes member submissions to our news. Log into your EENC account and find all the details on the Member Resources page.
The Center for Diversity and the Environment (CDE) invite EENC members to apply for the upcoming NAAEE Environment 2042 Leadership Intensive Cohort (E42LI) funded through ee360.
The purpose of the 5-day Environment 2042 Leadership Intensive is, through transformative experiences, to create a cadre of change agents that will build a more equitable, diverse and inclusive environmental movement and just society. The goals of this program include:
• Developing leaders who are committed to effectively moving equity, diversity and inclusion forward in their sphere of influence. • Relationship and community building, especially across race and ethnicity. • Encouraging innovation through the exchange of ideas among people with diverse perspectives. • Learning about and raising awareness of equity, diversity and inclusion. • Strengthening the environmental movement by uplifting all voices. • Applying learning to action within the participants’ spheres of influence.
The E42LI exemplifies a diverse, inclusive culture, demonstrating how environmental organizations need to operate to be successful. The cohort includes representation across various dimensions of diversity with a strong emphasis on racial and ethnic diversity. The program includes a five-session virtual retreat from Nov 1- Nov 5, 2021. The facilitated retreat will include: racial equity training, understanding environmental and racial history, relationship and community building, skills to lead organizational change, and tools to develop action-based solutions.
For full details and application information, click here.
From 1990 through 2017, EENC was an organization led exclusively by volunteers. In January 2018, we took a big step to grow our capacity by hiring our first Executive Director. Now three and a half years later, we're growing again.
To help provide you with more professional development options, more tools and resources, and better support for the field of EE, we're hiring a part-time Program Coordinator. Application review will begin July 5 and continue until the position is filled.
August update: this position has been filled. We look forward to sharing the official announcement of our new teammate soon.
Across our state, environmental education (EE) professionals are deeply interested in equity and inclusion. Currently, participation in training on this is often cost prohibitive for environmental professionals. While there are a number of amazing multi-day deep-dive trainings, the multi-hundred-dollar cost is often unattainable for the small, underfunded organizations with limited professional development dollars or whose low-wage staff pay for their own professional development. While the quality of those deep-dive professional trainings is undeniable, there is a major need for an introductory course that provides foundational knowledge without that cost barrier, helping employees make the case for their organizations to invest in further training and inspiring individuals to continue their personal learning.
EENC has been working over the last year to create an ongoing, affordable training for EE professionals through a partnership between Center for Diversity and the Environment, EcoInclusive, Youth Outside, Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education, and Kentucky Association for Environmental Education.
This summer, we're launching registration for our first cohort in this 10-15 hour asynchronous online course. For those pursuing EE certification, this course will qualify for Criteria I/continuing education credit.
This course is designed to provide a strong foundation in the language, concepts and principles of equity work for environmental educators and environmental professionals. It is meant to be an introductory course and spark interest in further learning around justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI). The main topics for the course include:
Foundations of communication for sensitive topics, including group agreements and nonviolent communication.
Developing a common language for discussing JEDI topics
Understanding historical intersections of the environmental movement with social justice topics, how those historical events might still be causing impacts today.
Understanding bias, stereotypes, and oppression
Reflecting on power and privilege that different identities afford, how that power and privilege manifests as microaggressions and how to use the power and privilege you had to develop a personal action plan.
Registration will be $40, and EENC members receive a $10 discount. Thanks to grants and donations from amazing individual donors, we're also able to offer a sliding registration option for this course, so that cost isn't a barrier to participation.
Registration for our first cohort is available here. We anticipate offering additional cohorts at least quarterly going forward.
Please contact Lauren Pyle with any questions.
"It goes without saying that 2020 held surprises that none of us could foresee and no one would have asked for. The world shifted and environmental education — as we knew it — changed." 2020 EENC President, Amy Renfranz
EENC changed right along with it. Because of new forays into virtual programming, we had a 135% increase in professional development and networking events. EENC grew our membership, had thousands of hours of volunteer help, and hosted the most-attended conference in our history!
Read more in our 2020 Annual Report.
As the North Carolina Affiliate , EENC is thrilled to share news from the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) about upcoming events and programs that provide opportunities for our state's educators to get national recognition for their amazing work. Here are some of their recent updates:
We are excited to announce our Call for Presentations for NAAEE’s 50th Annual International Conference and 18th Research Symposium in October. We are gathering virtually, after hearing everyone’s concerns about both safety and costs, and we are looking for compelling proposals. Learn more and submit proposals at conference.naaee.org.
CEE-Change Fellowship Program will bring together a diverse and inspiring cadre of formal and nonformal educators and community leaders working to address today’s complex environmental and social concerns at the local, state, and national levels. Apply by May 17. Learn More.
NAAEE has opened the search to find 30 game-changing leaders under 30 years of age who are using environmental education to build a sustainable future for all. Apply by May 5. Learn More.
NAAEE is working with Professors Bob Powell (Clemson) and Marc Stern (Virginia Tech) to disseminate a survey about the appropriateness and use of different approaches to civic engagement. The results will inform future training on these techniques and approaches. Visit this link for more information and please consider sharing this survey with your peers.
How does EE lead to conservation outcomes and how does EE influence the quality of the environment? Check out our newest publication eeWORKS: The Impact of EE on Conservation & Environmental Quality here.
NAAEE and a number of partner organizations have launched a new Coalition for Climate Education Policy (CCEP). This non-partisan network is working to advance climate change education and ensure that education and engagement are part of the toolbox of solutions to build more resilient communities, advance justice and equity, and create a climate-ready workforce. Learn more and join the coalition.
EENC is thrilled to announce that we're helping 11 educators from across our state in the third year of our mini-grant program. With EENC's support, they will building school gardens and improving their schoolgrounds, purchasing much-needed supplies, and partnering with their communities to support black, indigenous, and people of color participating in EE.
Congratulations to the 2021 mini-grant awardees:
Our grant recipients will be working on projects now through December 1. We'll share photos and stories as they finish. Stay tuned to see how these EENC members are promoting excellence in environmental education!
EENC is making plans for the future. Earlier this month, EENC finalized our outline to best support North Carolina’s community of environmental educators over the next few years. Like many of your organizations, we reevaluate our priorities every few years so that we can maximize our impact and make the best use of our capacity.
Over the next three years, we will focus our efforts on:
Advocating for the field of environmental education.
Building partnerships to advance EE efforts in and beyond the classroom.
Becoming a better, and better-known, resource for professional development, news, and tools to support North Carolina’s diverse audience of environmental educators.
Building our internal capacity so EENC can continue to grow and serve the needs of our community.
Through all of these focus areas, we are developing specific strategies to weave in justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, a broad definition of what environmental education looks like and who our state’s environmental educators are, and actionable ways to measure our progress. Stay tuned for more details! We are looking forward to sharing the full and final version of our strategic plan with you soon - and to putting it into action to advance environmental education across our state!
If you have any questions, please contact director@eenc.org.
The Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC) along with the N.C. Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs and the North Carolina Association of Environmental Education Centers (NCAEEC) need your help! We invite you to participate in an exciting project in partnership with the Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance to conduct a comprehensive landscape analysis of environmental education in the southeast states.
Please share and/or complete this survey designed for environmental education programs and service providers by Friday, April 2nd.
Organizations that respond will be included 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.
For this phase of the project, we are focused primarily on environmental education program and service providers. 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 Allianceis a partnership of the following organizations: Environmental Education Association of Alabama (EEAA), Environmental Education Alliance (EEA) of Georgia, League of Environmental Educators in Florida (LEEF), Kentucky Association for Environmental Education (KAEE), Mississippi Environmental Education Alliance (MEEA), Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC), Environmental Education Association of South Carolina (EEASC), and the Tennessee Environmental Education Association (TEEA).
If you have any questions, please contact EENC's executive director.
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