News From Here and There: New Jersey
The Environmental Education Advocate - Spring 1998
The following information is provided to you as a service of the National
Environmental Education Advancement Project (NEEAP). We encourage you to use it and
please credit the National Environmental Education
Advancement Project where appropriate.
Environmental Education (EE) is alive and well in New Jersey, with
hundreds of workshops and programs offered throughout the state in 1998-9 and at least 6
institutes and training programs to be offered this summer. New Jersey's EE program
is supported in many ways. Among these are: a State EE Commission and
Inter-agency Work Group, a trust fund, Environmental Education in New Jersey: A Plan
of Action, and an EE website.
Additionally, the NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards were put into code in May,
1996. The EE community aided in establishing an environmental science standard (in
Science) and an environmental studies standard (in Social Studies). EE professionals
are currently involved with drafting assessment models and questions and are keeping
"close tabs" on changing trends and needs in teacher training and enrichment.
This fall initiatives to redesign curriculum resources and non-formal programming,
in support of the standards, will be underway. One such initiative is to correlate
Project Learning Tree, Project WILD, and Project WET lesson objectives and skills with the
state classroom standards, and to redesign workshops and training programs to support the
standards. This grant will be completed by September and all new initiatives will be
implemented in the 1998-99 school year. For more information contact Tanya Oznowich,
EE Specialist, DEP (609) 984-9802.
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