The home of environmental education professional development
Allan Reid discussed the re-environmentalizing education - redoubling efforts to change mainstream education. Here, I'd like to start a conversation about possible "education" focused professional organizations, education institutes, educational policy connections, community-level leverage points, etc.
So, let's start creating a list and we can take it from there.
International Society for the Learning Sciences - https://www.isls.org/. I am an active member of this organization and have strong connections to top researchers in this new-ish field of study. They also host two international conferences, alternating between the International Conference of the Learning Sciences and the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning conference.
I intend to reach out to leaders in this field and to the ISLS leadership to start this border crossing.
I went to the AESS (Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences) conference last year, and it was really enjoyable. There are a lot of people there who are doing EE, particularly in higher ed, but don't call it that. There is an incredible range of expertise, as well, from political ecology, to ecological economics, to collaborating with campus ops to help students learn about food and waste management. I highly highly recommend this organization. There are at least two or three NAAEE members who are more involved in AESS than I am, and I know they would also encourage increased border crossing and pollination between the two groups.
Just want to second the AESS recommendation here. It's an interesting interdisciplinary organization and there's a good and growing EE presence there. Dr. Teresa Lloro-Bidart and I handle all the EE manuscripts for their journal (Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences) and we're always looking for quality EE scholarship over there. FYI.
I think we need to be as involved in NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) as possible. It's the key resource for K-12 science teachers across the country, and is in the midst of a focused and well-resourced push towards the Next Generation Science Standards. The push is a great opportunity to reframe existing units into project-based field work and interdisciplinary environmental studies; we as EE professionals can be resources to schools in forwarding this work.
Professional organizations involved with science education research and science teacher education include the National Association for Research in Science Teaching and the Association for Science Teacher Education. Both NARST (narst.org) and ASTE (theaste.org) have members who are involved with various aspects of environmental education.
