It is almost time for National Environmental Education (EE) Week! This year, EE Week will run from April 17-23 and this is a great time to think about incorporating some new EE activities into your planning. The National Environmental Education Foundation has some great resources broken into three themes:
Nature – https://www.neefusa.org/nature
Weather and Climate – https://www.neefusa.org/weather-climate
Health – https://www.neefusa.org/health
As you may recall, part of the EE Memorial that was passed by the NM Legislature recently including asking the Governor to declare an “Environmental Education Week” in April, encouraging all K-12 teachers and state agencies to celebrate environmental education by spending at least one hour of learning time outdoors. Although we are waiting to hear if this will happen in 2016, that does not stop all us engaged in EE to encourage the classroom teachers in our lives to get their classes outside for at least one hour of learning outdoors during EE Week.
With that in mind, please take the time to get the youth that you work with outside during EE Week and encourage those youth to take a few minutes to write a letter about their experience. In an effort to gather as many voices as possible to discuss the benefits of EE, we at EEANM will begin collecting letters from youth to pass along to decision makers. Please have students address letters “To Whom it May Concern” or “Dear Sir and Madam” and I will make sure those letters get to our decision makers including the Governor, State Legislators, and other elected officials. Please feel free to send letters to EEANM, P.O. Box 36958, Albuquerque, NM 87176. Again, youth can have a powerful voice about the importance of EE and we at EEANM would like to make sure their voices are heard!
Thank you EE community for all that you do!