Please take one minute to support No Child Left Inside funding for schools

Please take one minute to send the following template letter (personalize it if you can) to the email address in blue below! Thank you!

This is reprinted from one of the organizations working on passage of the NCLI bill. If your work doesn’t allow you to lobby, work on this in the evening and send it on your own behalf, from your personal email. Thanks!

Thank you for your continued support of No Child Left Inside. It’s time to position ourselves for victory in 2010!

The U.S. Department of Education is working on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind), and there are critical actions that must be taken now’”by you and by all the members of your organization’”to ensure that the bill includes provisions for pre-K through grade 12 environmental and outdoor education as outlined in the No Child Left Inside Act, sponsored by Senator Reed and Congressman Sarbanes.

The Department of Education is requesting comments on ESEA as they begin drafting new language for the bill. DOE officials have advised us that the comments they receive are being reviewed and carefully considered. It is essential that DOE hear from every one of us about the value of environmental and outdoor education to student success and teacher quality. Go now to ESEA.comments@ed.gov and let Secretary Duncan and the Obama Administration know that you support the inclusion of NCLI in the reauthorized ESEA. If you choose, you may cut and paste from the template below.

The NCLI Coalition has set a goal of having 50,000 emails sent to Secretary Duncan’s office support of the inclusion of NCLI in the reauthorized ESEA. We would like all NAAEE Affiliate organizations to send a request to all of your members to assist NAAEE in taking the lead in securing these 50,000 emails.

Make no mistake about it: a show of political muscle is absolutely critical’¦and we need to do it now. Please send your comments to ESEA.comments@ed.gov today, and ask your members to do the same by sending them the attached alert.

We have come a long way since the No Child Left Inside Coalition formed in 2006, but the real work is still ahead. We will succeed in ensuring that all of our nation’s students graduate from high school as environmentally literate students who are prepared for the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century’¦but it is going to take each and every one of us.

Thank you for all you do!

Shareen

Shareen Knowlton

Director of Education

Roger Williams Park Zoo

1000 Elmwood Avenue

Providence, RI 02907

(401) 785-3510 ext. 357

sknowlton@rwpzoo.org

www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org

The template message below may be of use to you in crafting your email. Remember to personalize it with information about why you are a member of the NAAEE Affiliate Network and support the work of the NCLI Coalition.

******TEMPLATE LETTER**********

Dear Secretary Duncan,

As you consider strategies to strengthen and amend ESEA, we urge you to consider the provisions laid out in the No Child Left Inside Act, which would expand opportunities for environmental and outdoor education in America’s schools. Comprehensive environmental education has been shown to improve student achievement across core subject areas and increase engagement in learning. Environmental education is critical to providing our students with the knowledge and skills to tackle complex problems, and succeed in a green economy. What’s more, getting kids outside and active promotes a healthy lifestyle that is essential to fighting obesity and reducing symptoms associated with attention deficit disorder, depression, and stress.

Leaving environmental education out of ESEA would be a missed opportunity to improve education while helping to systemically address the Obama administration’s other priorities of energy independence, a strengthened economy, and a healthier nation. We support the inclusion of NCLI in the reauthorized ESEA.

Sincerely,

XX YOUR NAME HERE XX