This project provides funding to colorado alliance for environmental education (caee) to implement its project, which will design, demonstrate, and disseminate environmental education practices,…

The Environmental Protection Agency Region 8 awarded the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE) a $133,396 Project Grant under the Environmental Education Grants Program (CFDA 66.951) to design and deliver environmental education professional development from September 1, 2022 through August 31, 2024. CAEE will establish a leadership team and conduct a needs assessment to develop online courses on addressing climate change and air quality. At least 40 educators will participate in the online courses and complete capstone projects implementing their new skills. CAEE will provide $5,000 subawards each to the Utah Society for Environmental Education, Montana Environmental Education Association, and Wyoming Association for Environmental Education to enroll students, offer courses, and evaluate their state credentialing programs. An additional $10,000 in subawards will support educators' capstone project implementations. The grant aims to increase environmental literacy and encourage beneficial environmental behavior across Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.

This project provides funding to colorado alliance for environmental education (caee) to implement its project, which will design, demonstrate, and disseminate environmental education practices, methods, and techniques, that will serve to increase environmental literacy and encourage behavior that will benefit the environment in region 8. The grantee will do this by creating a framework to develop, deliver, and sustain comprehensive environmental education professional development for educators across region 8 states (CO, WY, MT and UT). By developing and delivering an eecredential professional development program to ensure rigorous, effective, and accessible professional development grounded in the naaee guidelines for excellence, the grantee will prepare formal and non-formal educators in region 8 to address climate change with their learners. The professional development opportunities developed as a result of this grant will provide educators with the skills and knowledge they need to deliver effective, high-quality environmental education that helps learners weigh various sides of environmental issues and develop critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making skills. Activities:this project will increase public awareness and knowledge about environmental issues in region 8 and provide educators the skills necessary to make informed decisions and to take responsible actions. Activities to be performed during this project period include; caee will create a project leadership team with usee, meea, and wyaee that will serve as the planning and management team for the project. The project leadership team will design and facilitate a needs assessment with key stakeholders to better understand the environmental education professional development needs of the region and each individual state. The project leadership team will work with a consultant to develop content for one to three new shared online courses that will support educators in addressing climate change and improving air quality with their students to be combined with existing EE pedagogy courses to launch a full eecredential. Each state will facilitate at least one online professional development eecourse for at least 10 educators. Course participants will each complete a capstone project to implement skills learned in addressing climate change and improving air quality with their students. Course participants can apply for a subaward to implement their climate change education capstone project.subrecipient:three subawards for $5,000 each will be awarded to wyaee, usee, and meea to create eecredentials programs in their state (enroll students, offer online courses, marketing, evaluation, logistic management). The remaining $10,000 will be awarded to participants in the online course to support implementation of their capstone project. Participants will develop their capstone project proposal and be able to request funds, if needed, as part of their coursework. Funding requests will be evaluated using a rubric. Projects will be evaluated on how they address EPA environmental priority #1 and the degree in which their project reflects the guidelines for excellence in EE. Projects serving underserved communities will be prioritized. The grantee has met the 25% sub-award requirement and will also provide extra funds in match dollars for sub-awards.outcomes:IT is anticipated that this project will result in the following deliverables: 1. Establish leadership team with at least one representative from each state. 2. Regional professional development needs assessed. 3. New education courses created for professional development. 4. At least 40 educators participate in professional development. 5. At least 25 capstone projects successfully completed. Expected outcomes of the project include: 1. Build capacity for state EE organizations to more effectively and efficiently deliver high quality professional learning, building the knowledge