What drew Earth Day Network to pursue green education and advocacy issues?
In 1970, the first Earth Day had a strong educational message and was billed as a national teach-in. We’ve really carried that mission forward, not only with traditional environmental education methods like working with teachers and creating curricula, but also in greening schools and changing policies. We were one of the original groups to develop and advocate the No Child Left Inside concept and subsequent legislation. That legislation seeks to mandate environmental education as a formal national teaching standard, meaning it will be woven across K–12 curricula. Currently, we are lucky to get just one class of environmental education and it’s usually an advanced-placement environmental science course. The other thing the bill would do is mandate states to create environmental literacy plans so that after a certain age, citizens would have a basic knowledge of the environment. It passed in the House of Representatives last year and now is sitting again in the House and Senate. I’d say
