New York State

Environmental Literacy Plan

Young boy outdoors in a field holding a clipboard with a nature scavenger hunt list.

a workbook and toolkit for educators, administrators, and organizations to foster environmentally literate graduates and communities.

An environmentally literate citizen has a connection to the outdoor environment and a sense of place, understands the interconnectedness of all Earth systems, and is engaged and empowered to address environmental issues and understands the impact of human choices.

— Adapted from the NYSOEA Definition

About This Workbook

New York State doesn’t have official standards for Environmental Science or Environmental Literacy, which makes it hard for schools to include these topics.

This toolkit was created to help districts across New York:

  • Build an Environmental Literacy Plan (ELP) that matches state learning standards

  • Include environmental topics across all subjects

  • Use the Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) framework to put their ELPs into action

  • Encourage schools and communities to support environmental literacy

This resource was inspired by teachers in OCCA’s MWEE workshops, who created their own ELPs but found the process confusing. To make it easier, we worked with New York teachers to develop this simplified, ready-to-use guide.

Four children outdoors by a river, studying or taking notes, with trees in the background.
Three women exploring a lakeside forest in cloudy weather, one with a water bottle, and two looking at something on the ground.
Group of people examining aquatic life in a shallow river, with one woman kneeling in water and others sitting or standing on rocks.
Two children exploring a small muddy pond in a forest, with one girl squatting and touching the water and the other girl standing nearby, amidst trees and dry grass.
Two children near a small pond, one standing and the other crouching, collecting water or examining something with a net, surrounded by green grass.
Group of people collecting samples or conducting research in a shallow river on a rainy day, surrounded by dense green trees and vegetation.

NY State and Online Resources