Greening the Curriculum

Earth Day Network, a globally-recognized leader in environmental education, offers innovative education initiatives focused on creating a new generation of environmentally aware and democratically active citizens, as well as building healthy schools and communities. According to Richard Louv’s “Last Child in the Woods,” approximately 90% of our time is now spent indoors.  This is, in effect, creating a “Nature Deficit Disorder” (NDD) among the population, particularly students.

We plan to utilize and expand our 25,000+ Network to create an online warehouse for free, environmental education curricula to help solve the NDD crisis. The green school program’s efforts, in addition to our Educators’ Network, will broaden green school discussion and help to influence national and local legislation, including the No Child Left Inside (NCLI) Act currently in congress. On this crucial issue, EDN is helping to lead a coalition to add environmental education as a formalized standard of teaching. Additionally, we are focusing national policy efforts on key federal legislation, including the National Environmental Education Act (NEEA), The Global Warming Education Act, The Green Energy Education Act, The Higher Education Sustainability Act, and The New Apollo Energy Act. Local and state legislation will also be influenced through approaches to mayors and school boards. In Cincinnati, for example, the school board has adopted citywide environmental standards that affect school building and construction largely from EDN’s work with local teachers and officials. Our teachers, along with the help of EDN and others, will push for adoption of similar standards in their communities, especially in terms of creating grants for educators and promoting a green curriculum nationwide.