www.nature.org/leaf

A partnership between Environmental High Schools, the Nature Conservancy, and the Ecological Society of America

Introduction

LEAF is a partnership effort to empower the next generation of environmental leaders and equip them with the skills and knowledge to address our world’s most pressing environmental challenges. With the support of the Toyota USA Foundation, LEAF is expanding a nationally-recognized partnership model with environmental high schools in the Northeast to serve over thirty environmental high schools around the country. The program is designed to help educators from environmental high schools share curriculum and scientific resources during the academic year.

LEAF Services for Teachers

Teacher Meetings

LEAF will offer up to six professional development workshops for teachers to address topics of common interest including: sharing of curriculum, best practices, and external resources to advance the environmental mission of LEAF partner high schools. LEAF will survey selected educators from environmental high schools to shape the content of each meeting based on teacher interests and needs. These meetings will serve as a venue for teachers to highlight the innovative programs underway at each school, discuss challenges and obstacles, and establish support networks amongst teachers.

Participation from Member Schools:The annual LEAF educator retreat will be held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of The Ecological Society of America in Austin, TX.  Up to 15 teacher travel awards of $1,000 will be provided to cover transportation costs associated with this meeting. Travel awards will be given based on a competitive application process.

Upcoming meetings:

1. Teacher Webinar on April 5^th, 2011, 4:00-5:00 pm ET
2. Annual Workshop and Retreat on  August 8^th – 9^th,  2011 at the 96^th ESA Annual Meeting
3. Teacher Webinar on September 20^th, 2011, 4:00-5:00 pm ET
4. Teacher Webinar on November 16^th, 2011, 4:00-5:00 pm ET

Peer Reviewed Curriculum Anthology

LEAF will offer peer review of existing high school teacher curriculum and lesson plans by leading scientists and environmental educators at The Ecological Society of America and The Nature Conservancy. We will engage our top scientists from over  10,500 practitioners which conduct research, teach, and use ecological principles to address environmental issues that include: biotechnology; natural resource management; ecological restoration; ozone depletion and global climate change; ecosystem management; species extinction and loss of biological diversity; habitat alteration and destruction, and sustainable ecological systems. Individual teacher curriculum, lesson plans, and extracurricular programs will be compiled into a peer reviewed anthology and disseminated in January, 2012. Teachers will retain copyright and authorship of their original curriculum.

Curriculum process and contributions will be done through our Atlas Curriculum Management System. Atlas is recognized by schools and districts around the world for its ease of use, rich reporting capability and the customized approach. Each participating school will receive a license to access the system, will have access to great lessons plans all over the world and will receive training support.

Participation from Member Schools:Schools interested in participating in Curriculum peer review and anthology will need to identify 1-2 educators who can 1) share their own curriculum and/or 2) provide curriculum for review by other teachers within each school system.

Online Resources

LEAF will offer a suite of online resources and tools to promote the work of environmental education and enable curriculum and resource sharing through:

• School Profiles and extended pages built into LEAF website (http://www.nature.org/leaf/partnership/partner_schools.html)
• Online teaching science tools including Climate Wizard (http://www.climatewizard.org/), which allows users to visualize the impacts of climate change anywhere on Earth, Planting Science (www.PlantingScience.org)where students teams can work with scientists on scientific investigations, and  National Lab Day (www.nationallabday.org) which matches schools/teacher needs with scientists in the community.
• EcoEd Digital Library – a catalog of peer-reviewed teaching resources and curriculum for Educators. High school appropriate resources will be identified and tagged (http://www.esa.org/ecoed/)

Participation from Member Schools:Schools interested in participating in the online resources will need to promote these opportunities to educators within the schools, and track usage over time.

Marketing/Communications

LEAF will utilize the services of a public relations firm to highlight programs and member schools to media outlets focused on education, diversity, youth development, and the environment.

Participation from Member Schools:Schools interested in participating in media pitches will need to provide detailed information highlighting the innovative programs within their school systems.

Program Calendar

Partner Schools in the LEAF Network

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. Since 1951, The Nature Conservancy has protected more than 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of rivers worldwide. The Nature Conservancy works in all 50 states and more than 30 countries—protecting habitats from grasslands to coral reefs, from Australia to Alaska to Zambia. For more information, visit www.nature.org.

The Ecological Society of America is the world’s largest professional organization of ecologists, representing 10,000 scientists in the United States and around the globe. Since its founding in 1915, ESA has promoted the responsible application of ecological principles to the solution of environmental problems through ESA reports, journals, research, and expert testimony to Congress. ESA publishes four journals and convenes an annual scientific conference. Visit the ESA website at www.esa.org.

The Toyota USA Foundation is a $100 million charitable endowment created to support education programs serving kindergarten through 12th grade students and their teachers in the United States, with an emphasis on mathematics, science and environmental science. For additional information about the Toyota USA Foundation, visit www.toyota.com/foundation.