Environmental Education in New Jersey: A Call to Action

Section 6

The Strategic Initiatives

This section introduces and discusses four goal-oriented Strategic Initiatives that define specific steps that might be taken by environmental education providers and practitioners towards the fulfillment of the plan. They are:

I.          Know and Understand how Ecological Systems Work

II.        Care for Ecological Systems

III.       Keep our Environment and Ourselves Healthy

IV.       Plan for Today and Tomorrow’s Quality of Life

Each initiative is accompanied by a background discussion, the overarching goal of the initiative, what the environmental education community can do, actions recommended for specific audiences and metrics for measuring success.

Recommended actions and a timeline are presented in chart form and tailored to three broad audiences: adults (in any and all capacities as individuals, community members, business leaders, parents or consumers), educators (formal and informal, school-age and beyond), and youth. Some recommended actions are duplicated across the audiences as well as across the initiatives.