Environmental Education
#2910: Environmental Education (2006)
Requiring a study of environmental, natural science, wildlife, forestry, and agriculture education.
Supported by Sierra Club (2 points).
Signed into law.
This bill requires the office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to conduct a study to measure the benefits of environmental education programs to students' overall performance. Similar studies in other states have shown that outdoors based environmental education programs boost students' science scores.
This study will build on those studies by also looking at the relationship between these programs and career development, with a special emphasis on underserved youth in both urban and rural areas. The study is part of our Sierra Club campaign to help get young more young people outdoors, and the Sierra Club is helping to pay for part of the study.
This was a fairly straightforward bill that enjoyed strong support from many stakeholders. We worked closely with Audubon Washington, which has been one of the environmental education leaders in Washington.
Representative Dave Quall and Senator Rosemary McAuliffe, for sponsoring the legislation and making sure it made it through all the hurdles.