Help EENC Change the World!

Looking back, do you remember catching fireflies, playing in a creek, or building a fort with your friends?

Most children in today’s world won’t, which means that as they grow up, they may not have an invested interest in protecting our natural resources and natural spaces.

Environmental education is critical. It provides time in - and a connection to - the outdoors which research has shown to improve physical, mental, and emotional health. Learners not only gain environmental content knowledge, but also support to become civically engaged leaders. As such, environmental education is just as important for our participants as it is for the planet.

Since the rise of COVID-19 earlier this year, the Environmental Educators of North Carolina (EENC) has worked tirelessly to support those who provide the education we need for the world we want. A few of our efforts this year have included: 

• Creating the first online workshops in the nation for the K-12 Environmental Education and Professional Development Guidelines for Excellence, helping over 110 educators across eight workshops hone their practice and programs to national standards for high-quality EE programming.
• Launched community call and webinar series, providing over 2000 educators the opportunity to connect and learn from one another as we all negotiate the rapidly changing educational needs in our state.
• Convening active working groups to address critical needs in our field.  Over 20 educators on a diversity, equity, and inclusion action team helped revise EENC's operations, external communications, and procedures to help us become more equitable and inclusive organization.

You can help us.  With your support in 2021, EENC will:

Launch a new online Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion course. This new 10-hour online training will help environmental educators across our state provide more equitable and inclusive learning experiences for all participants and the course will be integrated into our state’s EE certification program.

Expand EE professional development offerings, including new online courses and in-person events as soon as it is safely possible to do so. Building on the success and demand for online training in 2020, EENC will provide high-quality training on topics tailored to the needs of specific groups, like classroom teachers and college students. These trainings will help educators build their skills so that they can continue to provide high quality environmental education for students across our state - even if it looks a little different than it did before.

Work at a systems level to support the field of environmental education. We will implement initiatives recommended by our EE partners through our 2020 working groups, collaborate across the southeast on a regional landscape analysis and other projects, and renew our strategic vision so we can maximize EENC’s impact across the state. 

EENC believes everyone, regardless of their background, where they live, or their demographics, should feel welcome in environmental education activities to reap these various benefits. Now, more than ever, we need to work together. It will take people of all ages and backgrounds working together to make informed decisions about increasingly complex environmental issues affecting the economy, public health/safety, and shared natural resources on which all life depends.

Will you help us? 

If you have a past experience that helped shape your love for and commitment to protecting our planet, please pay it forward by supporting EENC’s mission and work. Any amount you can give brings us closer to our goal.

Prefer to support EENC via check? You can mail a check to: EENC, PO Box 4904, Chapel Hill, NC 27515. Please let me know via email if you’d prefer this option so I can make sure your support is counted now toward our goal.