I read over on Tree Hugger that The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation is helping to bring environmental curricula to K-12 schools. Right now they’re pretty much in New York State, but it would certainly be nice to see it expand.

Of course, not everyone will be happy about this. There will be people such as my father-in-law who will go on about “eco-nazis” taking over the schools. You probably know the rant.

It’s important to have children learn early to think about the environment. I don’t mean teach them to go nuts on the subject, but topics such as recycling, cleaning up after ourselves and not using more than necessary are certainly quite relevant. Over time these can be developed further.

Reading through their site, I learned something I hadn’t known. Vermont has written sustainability into their educational standards already. Pretty wonderful to see states working on that already. Be nice to see other states follow suit.

One of the wonderful things about teaching children at a young age to respect our environment is how well they tend to take to it. The things they learn young can stick with them for life. I especially like this quote:

This new way of thinking challenges educators, administrators and the entire community to enrich education from an early age with sustainability knowledge, beliefs and “habits of the heart”.

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