Education - Environmental Literacy
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How can CBNERR-MD help build environmental literacy in our state?
CBNERR-MD is committed to providing special opportunities for students and their teachers and families to meet the Environmental Literacy Graduation Requirement! Multiple exposure and experiences in nature have been shown to have a profound effect on improving environmental literacy. Our component sites offer several ways to have meaningful experiences in the outdoors.
Why?
- Research has shown that environmental lessons, integrated into a standard curriculum, will have a positive impact on student achievement in core subjects such as reading, math and social studies.
- Student overall health is improved by taking the classroom outside and exposing them to outdoor recreational learning activities.
- The Maryland State Environmental Literacy efforts will provide critical tools for a 21st century workforce, giving students not only the skills they need for green jobs, but a broader understanding of the problems our natural world faces and how they can take action through their daily lives to conserve those resources.
Environmental Literacy in Maryland
In 2011, Maryland became the first state in the Nation to require students to be environmentally literate as a high school graduation requirement. The requirement does not call for a specific environmental course for students; instead, each local school system will shape its own environmental education program, but the program must align with Maryland Environmental Literacy Curriculum Standards. The goal of Maryland's Environmental Literacy standards is to enable students to make decisions and take actions that create and maintain an optimal relationship between themselves and the environment, and to preserve and protect the unique natural resources of Maryland, particularly those of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. For more information on Environmental Literacy in Maryland, visit the Maryland State Department of Education's Environmental Literacy Program webpage.
