Schools are the places where the most organized presentation of information and skill development occurs. There are, however, a number of different ways of presenting the information. Other schools will see that environmental literacy has components from a broad spectrum of traditional courses and will try to assure that appropriate concepts are developed within such courses as history, geography, mathematics, science, and language arts. Still other schools organize curriculum around key themes that develop all the basic skills using the theme as an organizer, indeed, environmental topics are often key organizers for such programs. Each of these curriculum structures has its pluses and minuses.
Different students respond positively or negatively to each.
It is both the prerogative and the opportunity for each school system to select the curricular approach which in their opinion assures that students in that school are provided with the knowledge and skills to meet the benchmarks appropriate to their grade levels. The benchmarks are essentially assessment tools to determine the degree of effectiveness of each school to develop and nurture environmental literacy within its student body. Benchmarks are designed not to tell learners what to think but to assure that they have developed the understandings and skills needed to think, feel, and act in ways that preserve the integrity of the environment to meet not only their immediate physical, social and emotional needs but the needs of generations yet to come. Getting the Job Done Teams of educators from each school need to review their curricula and determine the best places to insert the kind of information and skill development that will assure that learners can meet the grade appropriate benchmarks for the learners they guide. It will take some experimenting at each school to assure that their plan is working over several years of effort.