Nominator: Vanessa Bullwinkle

Project Learning Tree (PLT) is a multi-disciplinary environmental education program for educators and students in PreK-grade 12. PLT increases students’ understanding of their environment, their place within it, and their responsibility for it. Through hands-on interdisciplinary activities, PLT helps young people learn how to think, not what to think about complex environmental issues.

PLT began in the early 1970’s and is sponsored in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, several U.S. Territories, and eleven other countries (Canada, Sweden, Finland, Japan, Chile, China, Brazil, Mexico, Jordan, Philippines, and Slovakia). PLT curriculum has been translated into seven languages. For ten years now, Peace Corps volunteers worldwide have received training in PLT. Today, PLT is nationally administered by the American Forest Foundation.

For 30 years, PLT has dedicated itself to the field of environmental education by:

• creating quality curriculum materials and a comprehensive system of implementation
• expanding the reach of environmental education to educators through innovative partnerships and a vast network
• developing community-based opportunities for service-learning projects involving educators and their students
• providing environmental educational leadership at the local, state, national, and international level.