North American Association for Environmental Education

The North American Association for Environmental Education (naaee) is the professional Association for the field of Environmental Education and works to support and strengthen Environmental Education in North america and beyond. We have five key strategic objectives: drive excellence and spark field-wide innovation; invest in leadership for a stronger and more inclusive movement; cultivate collaboration and strengthen networks for change; champion Environmental Education through policy, communication, and outreach; and sustain a thriving organization. We are the lead on the five-year national Environmental Education training program, called ee360+, which is designed to help strengthen the field, support a field-wide technology platform, and train a cadre of educators to deliver high-quality Environmental Education programs. This initiative is part of a five-year cooperative agreement with the u.s. Environmental protection agency. This training consortium kicked off in june 2021 and builds on our previous partnership with ee360. This initiative involves a consortium of non-profit and federal partners and advisors. As part of ee360, we are continuing to provide professional development for thousands of educators and are helping to strengthen the infrastructure of the field. We also continued to promote our newest set of guidelines focused on community engagement, which was published in 2017 and we're working on a new set of guidelines focused on climate change and climate justice. In addition, we manage eepro, a professional learning site for the field of Environmental Education, with learning opportunities, online modules, research, discussion groups, and jobs. Naaee conducted a very successful conference in tucson, Arizona in 2022, with more than 1,400 people attending in person and virtually. Naaee and its affiliate network have more than 20,000 members and supporters, and reach more than 150,000 professionals across North america and beyond. We send out eenews and eejobs twenty times a year, reaching more than 12,000 readers and also have an active social media presence through facebook, x, and instagram. The natural start alliance is naaee's initiative to advance early childhood Environmental Education. The alliance helps support research in early childhood Environmental Education and advocate for policies that get young children outdoors playing and learning in nature, providing and promoting opportunities for educators to develop skills in early childhood Environmental Education, and building a professional network of educators who specialize in both early childhood and Environmental Education. The alliance includes more than 2,000 organizations, and supports an annual conference to bring nature-based early childhood educators together, and hosts a variety of networking opportunities at the naaee annual conference. Naaee is the secretariat for the global Environmental Education partnership (geep), a network of countries working together to strengthen Environmental Education. Working with u.s. epa and the ministry of environment in taiwan, as well as an expert global advisory group, naaee is helping to build capacity for Environmental Education in countries around the world by sharing best practices, convening thought leaders, creating a website for global interaction (thegeep.org) and promoting access to high-quality resources and ideas. Naaee continued the ee 30 under 30 program, recognizing 30 talented and committed young people working to protect the environment through Education. Naaee is continuing to work on linking research to practice, and has partnered with stanford university and other universities on eeworks, a project to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the peer-reviewed research and communicate about the value and impact of the field. Naaee also has a 5-year cooperative agreement with noaa, called eeblue, which is focused on advancing Environmental literacy and science Education. Naaee also continued our work to advance civic engagement, working with the kettering foundation and a number of partners throughout the country. Naaee works with a network of 54 state, regional, and provincial affiliates to support ee across North america.