Using the Environment as a Context for Learning in Standards-Based Education Systems

(Original date – May 2, 2011)  

Presenter:  Gerry Lieberman

The webinar will discuss the instructional components of the Environment as an Integrating Context (EIC) Model™ that was first developed by the State Education and Environment Roundtable (SEER) in 1998. Describing how these practices can help schools meet the academic needs of their students, it will summarize some of the evidence about the educational efficacy of the EIC Model™. Finally, it will provide an overview of SEER’s recent work in helping schools implement the EIC Model™ and briefly discuss how environmental educators can support schools restructure their programs in order to implement an environment-based education program.

Age appropriateness:  K-12

Gerald Lieberman is an internationally-recognized authority on school improvement using natural and community surroundings as interdisciplinary contexts for education. He led the development of the EIC Model™, and more recently, the development of California’s EEI Curriculum, which is now being disseminated to K-12 classrooms throughout the state. In 1995 Dr. Lieberman founded and has since directed the State Education and Environment Roundtable, a cooperative endeavor of departments of education in 16 U.S. states. Dr. Lieberman is the principal author of Closing the Achievement Gap: Using the Environment as an Integrating Context for Learning, a ground-breaking, national study that recently received an award from the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation for “bringing environmental learning into the mainstream of American K-12 education.”   He has designed and coordinated curriculum development programs in the United States, Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia and Argentina.  He lives in San Diego, California.