With so much attention now focused on how to help solve our environmental challenges, members of the North American Association for Environmental Education are ready to answer the question "What can I do?" For over 36 years, NAAEE's annual conference has provided hundreds of ideas for how to teach others to help our planet be more sustainable. This year's NAAEE conference, in Wichita, Kansas, on October 15-18, features many ways to share the message that every action matters in sustaining our planet. During the four days of events, participants also will be inspired by a host of artistic expressions in words, pictures, and songs. Registration opens June 2nd.
Start here >>
Early Bird Deadline: August 15, 2008

June 25-27, 2008 ~ Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico
We are excited to announce that the Border-Wide EE Conference program is shaping to be an amazing experience, with a wide array of opportunities for professional development and networking.

Come with us to Juarez, Mexico this June, the place to be for Border EE!

Nos complace anunciar que la Conferencia Fronteriza de Educación Ambiental está tomando forma para convertirse en una experiencia increíble, con una gran variedad de oportunidades para desarrollo profesional y colaboración.

Ven con nosotros a Juárez este mes de Junio ¡se parte de la historia de la Educación Ambiental Fronteriza!

Regístrate en línea >>

The NAAEE International Commission has arranged these two amazing opportunities for NAAEE:

· The Virtual Australian Tour
July 2008
Includes participation in the 2008 Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) conference on July 9-12, 2007 ~ Darwin, Northern Territory
Price reduction announced!

· Cuban Environment & Sustainability: Education Study Tour and Exchange
November 29 - December 8, 2008
10-day Professional Development Delegation to Cuba

The Great Plains Nature Center provides attendees of the 2008 NAAEE Annual Conference the opportunity to learn about the grasslands, wetlands, and woodlands indigenous to the Great Plains. View native fish in a 2,200-gallon aquarium. Compare your hearing to that of a bobcat or your vision to that of a pronghorn. The center is adjacent to the 240-acre Chisholm Creek Park that offers more than two miles of trails and boardwalks.

Deadline: June 20, 2008
To help provide teachers around the country with support for their innovative work to bring EE into the classroom, the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) is launching this opportunity for up to 25 teachers to secure as much as $5,000 to $10,000 in funding to bring innovative environmental themes into their coursework.

Tree Canada facilitates funding from environmentally-conscious companies, such as Shell Canada, GAP, Telus, and Home Hardware, for the Greening Canada's Schoolgrounds program. Selected schools receive educational information, technical advice, and financial support up to $5,000 towards the transformation of their school grounds into environmentally enriched learning landscapes.

Apply online: April 19 - October 19, 2008
The Weather Channel's Forecast Earth is inviting high school students to apply to be part of the Forecast Earth Summit, December 5-7, 2008, in Washington DC. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors during the 2008-09 school year are eligible and must submit a 200-word essay outlining what they personally are doing to combat climate change, along with contact information, and a photo.

Check out the list of diversity summer programs for 2008. List includes general and college-specific programs.

Explore Alaska’s legendary natural and cultural heritage with Alaska Geographic Institute. Accredited teacher trainings and field seminars are hands-on experiences set in remote locations throughout Alaska. Courses in 2008 include “Recovering the Sound: After the Exxon Valdez,” “Bears and Wilderness of Admiralty Island,” and “World of Wolves”. All courses are offered in partnership with Alaska’s national parks, forests, and refuges.
Contact: institute@alaskageographic.org

October 10-11, 2008 ~ San Francisco, California
This 3rd San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance Growing Greener School Grounds Conference aims to bring together over 300 K-12 teachers and community members from San Francisco, the greater Bay Area, and beyond to learn more about creating and sustaining vibrant outdoor learning environments. The conference begins with a resource fair and keynote address, and the following day attendees will attend full or half day workshops such as: designing, building, and maintaining school gardens, attracting wildlife to school grounds, building and using renewable energy systems at schools, tracking water use on school grounds, reducing waste, building schoolyard artwork, cooking with garden produce, green schoolyards and children's health and nutrition, and many other topics. Many of the workshops will also focus on ways to connect outdoor classrooms to the state curriculum framework.
Contact: Rachel Pringle, Programs Manager, rachel@sfgreenschools.org

July 7-11, 2008: secondary school teachers & July 21-25, 2008: elementary school teachers ~ Millbrook, New York
Join the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies scientists and educators for one week of free professional development. This experience will center on ecosystem ecology, focusing on aquatic ecology for secondary school teachers and water, food, and waste systems for elementary school teachers. Fellowships are available for high school teachers interested in researching tidal marshes.

June 2 - August 8, 2008 ~ Online
The online EE Institute is a professional development course designed to actively involve educators in facilitating the investigation and evaluation of environmental issues with their learners. It models a variety of EE strategies to assist learners in exploring and seeking responsible courses of action toward the resolution of environmental issues specific to their community. Via distance learning, Two optional graduate level recertification credits are available through the Colorado School of Mines Teacher Enhancement program for an additional fee.

Opportunity #1
The Science Education for Public Understanding Program (SEPUP) is seeking teachers to validate Ecology and Cell tests. All that is required is to give the test to students and return answer sheets to SEPUP. The tests are 40-50 questions, a mix of multiple choice and short answer, and are all directly from, or based on test questions from national test bank sources. Each test is designed to take one class period. Seeking test results by mid-June. Funding and grant restrictions prohibit pay for this help, but a small gift certificate to Amazon.com is offered as a thank you.

Opportunity #2
SEPUP is accepting applications for field test centers to participate in the national field test of our new course "Science in Global Issues" for the 2008-2009 school year. The development of this National Science Foundation funded curriculum is utilizing a process of backward design to develop four biology units and an accompanying introductory unit on sustainability. The process will begin with an all expense paid trip to the summer conference, July 28 – August 1, 2008, for professional development to prepare for field testing.

Application Deadline: May 21, 2008
August 12-14, 2008 ~ Boulder, Colorado
The GLOBE Program Office and Watershed Dynamics ESSP are offering this professional development opportunity for teachers introducing the second curriculum module on watershed dynamics and the inter-relationship between landcover and stream flow. Globe is seeking pilot teachers who can implement a three-week curriculum in the fall of 2008 and provide feedback and suggestions. Travel funding is available.

The Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) has provided school districts and their design teams with tools for building a new generation of high performance schools since 2000. At the heart of the CHPS program is the CHPS Criteria, Volume III of the CHPS Best Practices Manual, which provides a stringent and comprehensive standard for high performance schools. The Criteria is updated every three years, concurrent with the updates to Californias Building Energy Efficiency Standards (Title 24). The 2009 Edition of the Criteria will be out for public review in early June 2008 and CHPS is seeking public comment on the updated Criteria. The comment period is forty-five days.

Adventures with Jonny is a very unique outdoor children's series that combines three books into one. The book opens with a colorfully illustrated, rhyming children's story to pique the child's interest in the sport of fishing. The second section is a parental tutorial to aid parents in the proper introduction of their children to the sport. The book concludes with a fish identification game and a writing journal so that kids may record their early fishing adventures. Adventures with Jonny has teamed up with Project F.I.S.H. in a combined effort to reach more children and introduce them to the great sport of fishing.

Planned for full release in Fall 2008, LandScope America is an interactive conservation Web site linking maps, data, and stories about natural places of America’s lands and waters. This online resource for the land-protection community and the public is a collaborative project of NatureServe and the National Geographic Society. Tour the site, sign-up for the newsletter, and learn more about conservation efforts and issues in the U.S.

It's All about Student Learning: Assessing Teacher Candidates' Ability to Impact P-12 Students, edited by Arthur E. Wise and associates, is a compilation of performance assessments currently in use by consortia (the Performance Assessment for California Teachers, or PACT; the Renaissance Partnership, and the Ohio Teacher Quality Partnership), and individual teacher preparation institutions, to measure candidates' ability to impact P-12 student learning, including challenges and lessons learned. The publication includes actual assessment instruments. It provides practical assistance to those designing assessment systems or individual assessments.

Submit your video by June 2, 2008
Jimmy Kimmel Live is looking for a knowledgeable science teacher who would feel comfortable taking Jimmy through multiple unusual and entertaining science experiments for a potential new segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Ideally, if the right personality for the segment is found, this could be a recurring bit. Interested? Submit a brief video introducing yourself, share some background information, mention a few potential experiments, and explain why you would be a good candidate for this segment. The video should be no longer than five minutes and can be emailed or mailed to:
Tara Varilek
Jimmy Kimmel Live
6834 Hollywood Blvd., 6th Floor
Hollywood, CA 90028

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This email bulletin is provided by NAAEE , with funding from the Environmental Education and Training Partnership (EETAP). Read the latest EETAP Bulletin >> . EETAP is funded by U.S. EPA's Office of Environmental Education. The NAAEE promotes excellence in EE and serves environmental educators for the purpose of achieving environmental literacy in order for present and future generations to benefit from a safe and healthy environment and a better quality of life. Read the latest EETAP Bulletin >>

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