ASTC is a proud partner of ee360+, an initiative led by the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) in cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other partner organizations. This initiative seeks to grow, strengthen, and diversify the field of environmental education by spreading best practices and providing opportunities for collaboration.
Goals of ee360+
The ee360 initiative started in 2016. Key components are leadership training, educational resources, networking opportunities, and an online hub for educators to share with one another. ee360 has four primary goals:
Goal 1 – Driving Educator Excellence, includes multiple training courses such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training, Professional Development & Leadership Training, and Preservice Educator Training. They also produce the Guidelines for Excellence, a series of six documents that help environmental educators create quality programs. You can find and register for their many online programs on their Professional Learning page.
Goal 2 – Strengthen Organizational Capacity and Leadership, involves the NAAEE Affiliate Network, which is a grassroots network of over 50 state, provincial, and regional affiliates in North America who provide leadership and strategy for the environmental educators in their region. NAAEE also provides Accreditation for college, university, and professional certification programs, to help environmental educators identify high-quality programs, as well as their Civics and Environmental Education (CEE) Change Fellowship, which supports leadership and innovation in in civics and environmental education around the world.
Goal 3 – Mobilize Access to High-Quality Resources and Networks, includes the work they do to develop, gather, and disseminate quality environmental education resources. You can access these resources, including webinars, funding opportunities, guidebooks and more, by joining the eePRO online community.
Goal 4 – Maintain Excellence through Evaluation, Communication, and Management, comprises their efforts to measure and communicate the effectiveness of the work accomplished by their broad network of organizations and individuals. This effort includes their work with the Center of Science and Industry’s Center for Research and Evaluation, which is independently evaluating the project.
Members of the ee360+ team and participants at a Community Engagement: Guidelines for Excellence workshop at the 2022 NAAEE Conference in Tucson.
Powered by Collaboration
The ee360+ initiative is built on the idea that collective impact will build a stronger and more inclusive environmental education movement. To accomplish this ambition, ee360+ works with 27 partner organizations, which are divided into Training Partners and Dissemination Partners. Their Training Partners deliver professional development activities, while the Dissemination Partners increase access to high-quality resources and networks. As a Dissemination Partner, ASTC is introducing our members to ee360+’s resources in order to reduce duplication of effort in the environmental education field.