Environmental Educators of North Carolina

EENC’s mission is to build connections, provide professional development, and promote excellence for North Carolina's community of environmental educators.

EENC envisions a future in which: -Individuals across all NC communities are empowered by their kno

Goal One: Advocacy for the Field of Environmental Education

Goal Two: Partnerships for Building Capacity to Advance Environmental Education

Goal Three: Increase Recognition of EENC as a Go-To Resource for Environmental Educators

Attendance at the North American Association for Environmental Education's 2022 ee360 Leadership Clinic. EENC's representatives dug into some deep planning for the organization, and also got to share EENC’s experiences and lessons learned with other Affiliates, and participate in sessions with experts on communications, fundraising, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. This leadership clinic inspired EENC to explore shared leadership models, explicitly map out power and decisionmaking in our leadership, and develop a multi-year staffing plan that outlines a gradual plan to shift core operations from the working board to paid staff.

In 2022, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) initiated the process of revising our state’s science standards. During the last K-12 Science Standard Course of Study revision in 2010, many elements of environmental literacy were incorporated into the standards, so EENC knew it was essential to engage our community in this process to protect and strengthen that connection. In late May, NC DPI announced the first phase: a public “stakeholder survey” to gather feedback on the existing standards. EENC immediately crafted news articles and emails encouraging the EE community to participate. Then in November, NC DPI released the first draft of the new science standards for public review. EENC rapidly compiled all the standards into a preview document and co-hosted a working session with our partners at the NC Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs to gather comments across the range of expertise of the EE community. EENC then distributed this widely and asked educators to individually submit this collective feedback to amplify our community's priorities. Building on the success of this initial advocacy, EENC plans to continue to inform and engage our community in each opportunity for public feedback. Once those standards are released in 2023, EENC will work to ensure that all educators in our state are aware of the changes and will provide training and resources so that educators understand how environmental education supports high-quality science instruction.