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Environmental Literacy Seminar Series

In this seminar, teachers will learn to integrate environmental and sustainability education across subject areas and grades.  It will prepare K-12 educators to create curriculum and teaching strategies that challenge their students to be creative, think independently, and become active participants in making their local communities more environmentally and sustainably sound.

Program Information

• Classes offered on-campus, online and in various field locations.
• Wonderful professional development opportunity for licensed teachers.
• Series can be completed separate from degree program, OR along with Master of Education.

Course Descriptions

EDM 598A:  Seminar Series:  Environmental Literacy for K-12 Teachers (2)

This course provides an overview of the seminar series focusing on what environmental literacy is and how environmental literacy can impact children and teachers. Students will explore the interconnection and tension between the political, social, and economic needs of society, place-based education, project-based education, sustainability, the North American Association for Environmental Education standards, and how to integrate environmental literacy across the curriculum as a way to enhance existing curriculum.  Constructivist and field-based learning experiences are central to this course.

EDM 598B:  Seminar Series:  Foundations of Environmental Science (3)

This course addresses the concepts of environmental science, focusing on what knowledge, skills, and habits of minds are possessed by environmentally literate people as they work to balance the positive and negative interactions between people and the natural world.  Topics such as ecology (relationships between living/non-living), energy, population, resources, field trips, and community resources are examined in this course.  Together, students with and without science backgrounds explore relevant science content and issues that will support classrooms structures for integrating environmental literacy.

EDM 598C:  Seminar Series: Environmental Education Across the Curriculum: Methods and Innovations (2)                        

Students engage in interdisciplinary explorations of key environmental science topics in science, social studies, math, literacy and the arts and consider how to implement these methods in their own teaching context.  Students apply their understanding of environmental science to specific methods of teaching appropriate for the age of their students and subjects they teach.  Curriculum resources and field experiences are emphasized in this course.

EDM 598D:  Seminar Series:  Sustainability in Curriculum and Schools (3)

This course examines the values, ideals, and principles that underlie sustainability.  Using sustainability as an interdisciplinary model, topics such as social justice, natural resource conservation, invasive species, environmental preservation and restoration, intergenerational equity, etc. are examined. Developmentally appropriate content, methods, and curriculum related to the integration of sustainability help students build a foundation of teaching knowledge and practices.  Students also analyze the ways in which sustainability can fit into a larger school structure.

EDM 598E:  Seminar Series:  Connecting Schools and Communities for Environmental Literacy (1)

This course develops the concept of community-based learning as it relates to environmental literacy and analyzes the practical and service learning resources available to teachers and students in the school neighborhood, community, and state.  Students learn how to create experiences that get children outside the school walls as well as how to organize and manage those experiences.  Students develop their own service-learning project focused on community-based learning that they can complete in their practice.

EDM 598F:  Seminar Series:  Literacy-Based Environmental Education (2)

Integrating literacy across the curriculum is a powerful way to teach, and make relevant, the issues and concepts central to environmental literacy. This course focuses on literature (fiction and non-fiction), writing, alternative texts, media and the methods of using these literacy tools to teach concepts such as community, sustainability, ecosystems, bio-diversity, conservation, and social justice.  This course addresses books and literacy activities appropriate for a range of age and developmental levels.

EDM 598G:  Seminar Series:  Leadership in Environmental Literacy (2)

Students identify and learn how to utilize and integrate resources from community partners and professional organizations (regional and national) into their curriculum. Students make use of relevant resources (people, funding, access) to enhance curriculum, experience, and methodology in the K-12 classroom.  Grant writing, networking, collaborating with community partners, and writing for publication are investigated as means for improving classroom practice and promoting school-wide interest in environmental literacy.