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WHAT
IS EEAI?
Since
initiated in 1972, The Mission of the Environmental Education
of Illinois (EEAI) has been to maintain a vital network that
supports and advances quality environmental education throughout
the state. Since inception, EEAI has provided leadership at
the local, state and national level within the environmental
education community by providing and supporting professional
development services to the formal and non-formal educator.
As host to national, state-based and independent professional
development events and curriculums such as Project Flying
WILD, Growing UP WILD, Prairie School Project and the Midwest
Environmental Education Consortium, EEAI has set the professional
standard to which educators have learned to depend on.
EEAI depends on their membership-based classroom, nature center
and museum educators, as well as many networks of governmental,
private and school-based relationships in order to facilitate
and ensure quality delivery of programming.
EEAI serves as the Illinois affiliate of the North American
Association for Environmental Education and operates under
an elected Board of Directors consisting of 2-3 Regional Directors
for each of the five regions of the state and the Executive
Committee.
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Sponsors
exciting and informative environmental education conferences
in conjunction with EEAI's spring membership meeting.
The EEAI Spring Conference is held at scenic locations
throughout the state of Illinois. Once every eight years,
EEAI sponsors the Midwest Environmental Education Conference,
which draws participants from throughout the nation. Both
the annual EEAI conference and the Midwest conference
offer a variety of presentations, exhibits, and special
events of particular interest to environmentalists.
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Promotes
several supplemental environmental education curricula
including; Project Learning Tree and Project WET. All
of these efforts are made cooperatively with with the
Illinois State Board of Education, the Illinois Department
of Natural Resources and other private and public organizations.
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Publishes
the Illinois Environmental Education UPDATE; the only
periodical in Illinois devoted to current information
and ideas about environmental education.
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Reviews
and makes recommendations regarding environmental education
materials, trains workshop facilitators and locates
funding sources to implement high quality environmental
education programs.
ABOUT
EEAI
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YOU
CAN BECOME INVOLVED by contacting your regional EEAI representatives
concerning local activities, by reading our newsletter,
UPDATE, for news about environmental education issues
and by participating in the annual EEAI membership meeting
and conference.
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Click here
for a copy of the EEAI Constitution
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Illinois is very
proud to have updated the state Environmental Literacy plan
to advance the learning of Illinois environmental education.
View the Environmental Literacy for Illinois” state
plan at: 2010
Environmental Literacy for Illinois
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Early in 2000,
the Illinois Environmental Education Advancement Consortium
(IEEAC) was challenged with reviewing the Illinois Learning
Standards to identify benchmarks that addressed environmental
education. In 2005, the group was challenged to look at
the Science and Social Studies descriptors and identify
those that addressed environmental education. The rubric
chosen to complete the correlation was developed by the
North American Association of Environmental Education’s
National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education
Guidelines for Learning (K-12). See the results at: http://www.ieeac.org/eestandards.pdf
EEAI is Also an Affiliate of the
North American Association for Environmental Education
(NAAEE)
NAAEE
is the world's largest association of environmental educators,
with members in North America and 55 countries worldwide!
Membership
benefits include:
- 6
issues per year of the NAAEE informative publication, the
Environmental Communicator.
- Discounts
on registration fees for NAAEE's annual conference, and on
many publications.
- Access
to the NAAEE Skills Bank - a valuable database of members'
expertise.
- Opportunities
for professional development.
For
NAAEE membership information, see the NAAEE website or contact:
Janet Thoreen, NAAEE Publications and Membership Office, P.O.
Box 400, Troy, OH 45373. Phone/fax (937)676-2514
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