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Rhode Island
K-12 Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan
Produced by the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association in association with New Knowledge Organization Ltd. 2016
Recommended Citation: RIEEA (2016). Rhode Island K-12 environmental literacy assessment plan. Providence, RI:
Rhode Island Environmental Education Association.
Date of Publication: August 24, 2016
These materials were prepared by New Knowledge Organization Ltd. for the Rhode Island
Environmental Education Association through funding provided by the Rhode Island
Foundation, and the North American Association for Environmental Education..
Rhode Island K-12 environmental literacy assessment plan is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan ii
Rhode Island Environmental Education Association
(RIEEA) and Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE)
collaborated on the development of an Environmental
Literacy Plan released in June 2011. The plan outlined the
purpose of environmental literacy, identified core
attributes and linked those attributes to curriculum goals
and objectives.
Five years after publishing that plan, RIEEA convened the
Environmental Literacy Assessment Planning Summit
(summit) on July 14-15, 2016. The two-day workshop
consisted of a series of facilitated discussions with expert
advisors from the national environmental education field
as well as local stakeholders from the Rhode Island
education community. The advice from this group helped
a RIEEA leadership team develop a three-year strategy for
implementing an ongoing assessment plan to monitor
progress toward achieving comprehensive environmental
literacy (EL) for high school graduates across the state.
To prepare for the workshop the facilitators from New
Knowledge Organization Ltd. (NewKnowledge) compiled
a set of briefing materials on EL assessment and student
performance in Environmental Education (EE) and related
fields.
Based on input from the leadership group, the RIEEA
team developed four distinct initiatives and a work plan to
develop an ongoing benchmark assessment for the
adoption of the literacy plan. The work aims to develop
measures for monitoring growth in the field, modifications
to the assessment strategies over time, and to support
gap analysis to make decisions that can directly impact
students in their K-12 learning career. This report
summarizes the findings and output from the summit
while outlining the four assessment initiatives.
Executive Summary
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan iii
_JACK REED
RHODE ISLAND
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20510-3903
July 13,2016
Hi, I'm Jack Reed and I would like to thank you for coming to Rhode Island for theEnvironmental Literacy Assessment Planning Summit. This is critical work.
Environmental education and outdoor learning programs can have a positive impact on kids'health and academic achievement, and empowers them to be good stewards of our environment.
Your efforts here today are critical to equipping the next generation with the knowledge andskills they need to achieve their fullest potential, to be good citizens, and to confront globalchallenges like climate change.
We have come a long way since we began crafting the No Child Left Inside Act nearly a decadeago. Today, key parts of the bill have been signed into law as part of the Every StudentSucceeds Act. As a result, we are freeing up critical resources for environmental education toinspire the next generation of scientists and conservationists.
Thanks to the hard work of many of you here today, nearly every state in the nation has madestrides toward developing an environmental literacy plan. This summit will help us move to thenext level. It will advance our understanding of how to integrate and evaluate environmentalliteracy across our educational programs, helping connect the dots between environmentalliteracy and student success.
I would like to thank the summit's sponsors and organizers, including the Rhode IslandEnvironmental Education Association, the Rhode Island Foundation, the North AmericanAssociation for Environmental Education, the Rhode Island Department of Education, the RhodeIsland School Building Authority, and the New Knowledge Organization for bringing all of youtogether.
Finally, I would like to take a moment to commend Rhode Island's environmentaleducators: You are committed, creative, and extraordinarily effective. You are national leadersin the field for good reason.
Again, thank you for all you do to advance environmental literacy. I wish you a successfulsummit and look forward to continuing our work together.
Sincerely,
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan iv
Initiative 1: EL Leadership and Partnerships
This effort will focus on understanding the political and
administrative context surrounding the implementation of
EE practices across Rhode Island. It will include those
responsible for policy implementation at the state and
school level to help direct resources to those most
capable of advancing the EL plan and assessments. This
initiative will aim to identify areas for advancing adoption
of EE strategies that can contribute to advancing EL. It will
also implement regular check in and monitoring with
these leaders and partners to create a practical strategy
for managing key advocates and opponents.
Initiative 2: Striving for Excellence in EE Practice
Initiative 2 will focus on advancing practice in the field.
Building on NAAEE’s Guidelines for Excellence, this team
will launch a new professional practice group within RIEEA
to engage in self-directed study, employing action
research to develop their own practice as a model for the
field. Together, they will identify readings helping define
excellence in EE and experiment with practical assessment
of learning outcomes to help those currently working with
the EL plan advance and improve EL practice. This
initiative represents an experimental think tank partnering
with a key college partner for guidance. They aim to lead
experiments in measuring EL advancement across a
student’s career in EE focused schools.
Initiative 3: Monitoring the Status of K-12 EL
This effort will focus on developing a comprehensive
assessment of student achievement in environmental
literacy at key phases in their school career. RIEEA
members will focus on assessments that consider potential
affordances in the school such as Green School buildings,
access to nature and neighborhood learning, as well as
presence of curricula that can support development of EL.
This group takes on the task of developing assessment
tools that are embedded in student work products. It will
aim to reduce the burden of testing, by considering
assessment strategies that representatively sample from
across the state and school systems rather than focusing
on each student. This group will also attempt to
collaborate over the next two years with those tasked with
developing the Next Generation Science Standards
(NGSS) assessments in Rhode Island. It will aim to embed
questions in the NGSS assessments that can assess STEM
achievement as a subset of the larger standardized test.
Initiative 4: EL Supporting a Better Rhode Island
EL is considered essential to creating a better Rhode
Island. This task group seeks to define how major
agencies and non-profits in Rhode Island seeking to
advance education, student learning, environmental
sustainability and creative arts can align with EL and EE
practices to advance their mission. Through a series of
collaborative meetings and discussions, the team will
consider how EL might support the objectives and goals
other organizations have set for themselves.
Four Assessment Initiatives
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan v
Executive Summary ii
Four Assessment Initiatives iv
Initiative 1: EL Leadership and Partnerships iv
Initiative 2: Striving for Excellence in EE Practice iv
Initiative 3: Monitoring the Status of K-12 EL iv
Initiative 4: EL Supporting a Better Rhode Island iv
Table of Contents v
Introduction 1
Purpose of an Assessment Plan 4
Goals, Uses, and Cautions for EL Assessment 5
Measurement Assumptions: 6
Cautions in Measurements 6
Initiative 1: Leadership and Partnerships 8
Initiative 2: Striving for Excellence in Practice 11
Initiative 3: Monitoring the Status of K-12 Environmental Literacy 14
Instructional Practices and Indicators of EL 15
Indicators of EL 15
Physical Environment of Schools 15
Initiative 4: EL Supporting a Better Rhode Island 18
Metrics and Measures Appendix 20
Resources 21
Workshop Participants 25
List of Tables
Table 1. Work Plan Coordination and Reporting Schedule 7
Table 2. Timeline for Leadership & Partnerships 10
Table 3. Timeline for Striving for Excellence in Practice 13
Table 4. Potential process and output measures (see
appendix for references) 16
Table 5. Timeline for Monitoring Status of K-12 EL 17
Table 6. Timeline for Supporting a Better RI 19
Table 7. Commonly used environmental literacy
instruments 20
Table of Contents
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 1
Rhode Island was among the first states in the US to
complete and publish an Environmental Literacy Plan
(ELP). That effort opened the door for potential federal
funding to support and equip teachers with the skills,
knowledge, and confidence needed to integrate critical
environmental and science learning into their curricula. It
also laid out the core concepts considered essential for
graduating seniors to become active participants in Rhode
Island’s economy and ecological future.
In the Rhode Island ELP, Rhode Island Environmental
Education Association (RIEEA) and Rhode Island
Department of Education (RIDE) adopted the Framework
for 21st Century Learning. The Partnership for 21st
Century Skills defined an environmentally literate student
as one who can:
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the environment and the circumstances and conditions affecting it, particularly as relates to air, climate, land, food, energy, water and ecosystems;
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of society’s impact on the natural world (e.g., population growth, population development, resource consumption rate, etc.);
• Investigate and analyze environmental issues, and make accurate conclusions about effective solutions; and
• Take individual and collective actions toward addressing environmental challenges (e.g., participating in global actions, designing solutions that inspire action on environmental issues).
Furthermore, the Rhode Island ELP also adopted The
Campaign for Environmental Literacy’s (2011) five
essential components that reflect humanities and civics
learning capacities:
• Capacity for personal and collective action and civic participation;
• Problem solving and critical thinking skills;
• Attitudes of appreciation and concern for the environment;
• Knowledge and understanding of human and natural systems and processes; and
• General awareness of the relationship between the environment and human life.
Submitted by the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association
in collaboration with the Rhode Island Department of Education
Donna Braun, Ed.D.Center for Research and Evaluation
Johnson & Wales University
Peter McLarenRhode Island Department of Education
Kristen SwanbergAudubon Society of Rhode Island
Rhode IslandENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY PLAN
Introduction
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 2
In the five years since publication, RIEEA and RIDE have
committed resources to implement four key aspects of the
Rhode Island ELP:
• Managing a searchable resource database of
environmental education opportunities;
• Promoting the Green Ribbon Schools initiative and
guiding applicants through the process;
• Offering professional development opportunities for
formal and informal educators; and
• Developing guidelines for the School as a Tool
portion of the Collaborative for High Performance
Schools (CHPS) program.
This report focuses on a fifth resource that is essential to
following through on an ELP: an assessment strategy that
can easily and effectively evaluate advances in EL through
K-12.
To accomplish this goal, and with the support of the
Rhode Island Foundation (RIF), the North American
Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) and in
collaboration with New Knowledge Organization Ltd.
(NewKnowledge), RIEEA convened a two day workshop to
rapidly advance the development and implementation of
a comprehensive state-wide assessment plan. The
workshop consisted of two efforts: A one-day
brainstorming session with leading experts in EE and
Rhode Island stakeholders focused on how an assessment
can be undertaken in meaningful, useful, and practical
ways. This led to a second day where RIEEA members
developed four distinct initiatives that could be used to
assess the state of EL in the K-12 system.
EL has been defined in many ways. Here we adopt one of
the most comprehensive definitions of EL as taken from
The Campaign for Environmental Literacy:
…the capacity of an individual to act successfully in daily
life on a broad understanding of how people and
societies relate to each other and to natural systems, and
how they might do so sustainably. This requires sufficient
awareness, knowledge, skills, and attitudes in order to
incorporate appropriate environmental considerations
into daily decisions about consumption, lifestyle, career,
and civics, and to engage in individual and collective
action. (Campaign for Environmental Literacy, 2011)
Coincident with the publication of Rhode Island’s ELP,
Developing a Framework for Assessing Environmental
Literacy (Hollweg, Taylor, Bybee, Marcinkowski, McBeth, &
Zoido, 2011) reported that a consensus definition of
environmental literacy is only a recent development and
the lack of agreement on the definition of EL had made
measuring it a difficult task. Despite this difficulty, there
has been an increasingly refined set of instruments
designed to measure components of EL in K-12 (see
Appendix Table 7).
Furthermore, national assessments in Korea, Israel, and
Turkey have been compared to the U.S. assessments
(Marcinkowski et al., 2013) and the 2006 PISA Science
Assessment (OECD, 2009). Combined, these U.S. and
international studies give researchers a baseline for EL and
opportunities for comparison if common measures are
adopted. There is general consensus among EE
researchers that EL assessments should break down data
by EL components and age/developmental level. It is
important to consider which aspects of EL are likely to be
influenced by the existing EE efforts in Rhode Island, and
where there may be gaps between the two. Keeping
these gaps in mind, data collected may answer questions
as to how to move forward with EE efforts in Rhode Island.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 3
The EE workshop participants recommended that an EL
assessment should not be considered solely on the basis
of school exit performance, but should be measured
across the learning career. The workshop participants also
recommended that measuring implementation of an ELP
is linked to the leadership that will implement the plan
through political and administrative branches of
government including at the school board and school
administrator’s level. They also suggested that context
would play a central mediating role that may obscure
cause and effect between EE and EL.
There was general agreement among the workshop
participants that assessment is currently conflated with
standardized testing. While some standardized measures
are useful, the purpose of this assessment is to gauge the
EL of students graduating from high school in order to
understand their capacities to face environmental
challenges in the future. Workshop participants suggested
that assessment of the overall state of EL does not require
a focus on every student. They recommended that an
assessment focus on effective EL as a general school level
measure that can include the understanding that not every
student will perform well. They suggest that a reasonable
goal would predict a small percent of individuals to attain
Nominal literacy, a majority to achieve Functional literacy,
and about 5 - 10% of all students, the future leaders in
environmental decision-making, to reach Operational
levels of EL (see Roth, 1991). That is to say, measures of
effectiveness should see a normal bell curve on literacy
scores reflecting that not all members of a community will
emerge as leaders in environmental strategy.
Lastly, it was noted that this effort is timely, with the
pending development of standardized testing for the
NGSS.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 4
The purpose of this assessment plan is to develop a
baseline measure and benchmarking strategies that can
assess the advancement of EL across the state of Rhode
Island. In so far as these objects are achieved it will
provide reporting that can help RIEEA and its
partners/collaborators reveal opportunities and gaps, set
priorities for interventions, and identify possible new
partners/collaborators that can support the expansion of
state-wide EL. Ultimately the intention of such an
assessment plan is to prepare Rhode Island’s next
generation of citizens for the coming environmental
challenges of the 21st Century.
This assessment plan will lead to the development of
tools, schedules, and reporting strategies to:
• Effectively assess development of EL;
• Monitor research that examines the contribution of EE to academic achievement during a child’s development; and
• Provide comparative data from all school types and regions (public, charter, and private school) to help identify the most effective or important areas to direct resources to.
This assessment plan acknowledges that variation in the
degree to which EE is integrated into school practices will
influence environmental literacy outcomes. In the
following pages, the assessment plan outlines steps
toward an agreed suite of related measurable indicators of
learners’ development. Included are recommendations for
comparative research to understand how different
education pedagogies are implicated in advancing EL,
and the contexts that might influence EL outcomes.
This plan further recognizes that minimum standards alone
will not advance EE practice. Therefore, this assessment
plan includes a focus on advancing practice in EE
pedagogy parallel to the primary measures of literacy
across the state. Lastly, no assessment plan would be
complete if it did not attempt to capture the sociocultural
context that supports the efforts.
In summary, this assessment plan seeks to develop
ongoing measures for the following:
• Political partnerships and opportunities;
• Excellence in EE program delivery;
• Advancing state wide EL; and
• Understanding EL status for K-12 in the state,
While developing:
• Standardized instruments that can measure EL at strategic points across grades;
• Standardized instrument to measure effectiveness in teaching EL; and
• Studies that explore the value of EE to student achievement across all aspects of the curriculum.
Purpose of an Assessment Plan
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 5
The following steps were considered necessary to
implement an assessment plan:
1. Re-committing to the definition of EL as
articulated in the ELP with grade specific goals
that start at the novice and stair step toward
functional and operational literacy;
2. Developing a RIEEA policy articulating the range
of influences that can impact EL (both positive
and negative factors);
3. Developing EL assessments with the intention
that they can serve as model assessments
deployed across the country, while adopting
already tested assessments and those that need
to be developed based on intended use in
policy, advocacy or investment priority setting;
4. Aligning the definitions and assessments to
existing curriculum priorities already embedded
in RIDE standards; and
5. Prior to implementation, developing a
sustainability plan to ensure benchmarking is
continued should state priorities shift.
RIEEA has identified four unique areas for an ongoing
assessment of Environmental Literacy:
• Initiative 1: Leadership and Partnerships
• Initiative 2: Striving for Excellence in Practice
• Initiative 3: Monitoring the Status of K-12
Environmental Literacy
• Initiative 4: EL Supporting a Better Rhode Island
The workshop participants recommended the following
goals and uses for data gathered from an assessment.
The bracketed criteria after each bullet indicates the use
of data from across the four initiatives:
• Support data-based decision making where effort is needed to prepare the next generation for 21st century environmental problems (priority setting);
• Outline flexible solutions to address statewide capacities and deficits (priority setting).
• Help support continuous improvement of all EE practices (improving professional practice);
• Use data-based direction for improving policies that lay the foundation for excellence in EL education (supporting advisory work);
• Create learners with the skills to address future issues we do not even understand yet. (supporting advance of environmental disposition);
• Support advocacy to both institutionalize and advance EL education at all levels and in across the range of K-12 school (advocacy); and
• Direct attention toward efforts that can support healthier learners that can support full cognitive development (advocacy).
Goals, Uses, and Cautions for EL Assessment
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 6
Measurement Assumptions:
• It is important to use data to clearly communicate to school leaders the benefits and rationale for improving EE and EL in their schools;
• High levels of EL at the end of the senior year might be the result of paths other than an EE curriculum. Therefore, measures should include efforts to describe which experiences during the K-12 period lead to more environmentally literate students;
• Measurement should account for both the path to EL and prime conditions for the adoption of a new EE focus;
• Measures will likely have greater opportunity for adoption if they are aligned to the Every Student Succeeds Act and metrics such as student engagement, student absenteeism, etc.;
• The pending development of NGSS assessment with RIDE offers an opportunity to integrate EL assessment as an aspect of that program without increasing student test burden;
• RIDE is bringing back the School Climate Survey, which provides an opportunity to collaborate with RIDE on an assessment that can also map to EL measures;
• RIDE will be developing Proficiency Based Graduation Requirements (PBGR), Applied Learning Assessment (ALA), and a three dimensional survey, which could also include EL measures;
• Measures should include triangulation to the demographics of Rhode Island and ensure sufficient data captures the voices of each cultural group; and
• It may be useful to develop measures that account for out-of-school activities such as student volunteer opportunities, family nature habits, and other nature experiences that could provide alternate paths to EL.
Cautions in Measurements
Workshop participants also noted a few cautions related
to advocacy and inference from data;
• Any measurement strategy should start with an
assumption that effective integrated instruction,
whether EE or not, may contribute to higher levels of
teacher and student engagement and happiness from
teaching and learning. This instructional model may
result in higher EL achievement since there is no
evidence to the contrary to date; and
• Any advocacy should be directly grounded in the
outcomes of research studies that demonstrate student
improvement rather than anecdotal evidence that may
simply reinforce existing beliefs.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 7
Table 1.Work Plan Coordination and Reporting Schedule
Time Activity Reporting
Q1 Establishment of RIEEA Working Groups
Confirm commitment from a Chair for each initiative and support team
Establish coordinator meeting schedules
Establish team meeting dates & intersection meeting for cross-group collaboration
Confirm working group teams and identify key points where intersection meetings should occur
Q2 Set first activities in motion
Develop an integrated schedule with key reporting dates and communications tree to ensure leveraging of resources.
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q3 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes
Identify & develop remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q4 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes
Monitor, report, update remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict
Develop annual report on results to date
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders. Identify revisions to the plan based on data collected to date, develop first benchmark report for each of the four initiatives, what is known, what are the next steps, and how are others helping
Q5 Year 2 Activities commence Updates due at coordination meeting
Q6 Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes Updates due at coordination meeting
Q7 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes
Monitor, report, update remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q8 Continued action per plan
Develop annual report on results to date
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders. Identify updates to the plan and report on benchmark data.
Q9 Lay foundations for first state-wide assessment
Revisit working group structure and consider additions and restructuring
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q10 Continued action per plan/Launch state-wide assessment strategy Updates due at coordination meeting
Q11 Continued action per plan and first wave data analysis Updates due at coordination meeting
Q12 Publish first state-wide assessment of Rhode Island K-12 EL
Develop next wave of ongoing assessment and institutional support process
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 8
Environmental literacy in the K-12 system is not part of
Common Core nor any other education standards
currently assessed through standardized testing. It does,
however, have components that can be aligned to
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM),
language, arts, humanities and civics. Through alignment
of content, EL could quite reasonably be considered as an
indicator topic relevant to statewide testing. To
accomplish this objective will require political leaders and
administrators from across the school system to support
this objective. Therefore, the first assessment focuses on
assessing the state of EL leadership among stakeholders.
The workshop participants agreed that Bybee’s (1997) four
P’s: Purposes, Policies, Programs, and Practices offered a
framework to describe the landscape of EE in Rhode
Island. The purposes are already mostly outlined in the
ELP, the policies can easily be garnered from RIEEA and
the state’s documents as a baseline assessment rubric to
describe the beliefs and support of leaders and
stakeholders who can facilitate support for EL in the state.
In parallel, this initiative recommends using personal
connections from RIEEA members in meetings to develop
an internal status report on where EE and EL lay on the list
of importance in formal schools. The work and statements
of superintendents across Rhode Island were suggested
as sources for these reports.
In a first wave assessment, this initiative will focus on
leadership within key stakeholder organizations:
A first priority for leadership is to explore the possibility of
partnering with RIDE and its partners for opportunities to
support development of the NGSS assessment. This will
require identifying key individuals with specific skills and
connecting appropriate experts within the RIEEA network
to serve as instrument developers. In a parallel effort, this
leadership will be critical in the effort to identify test sites
for pilot testing and validity studies. Possible measures
might include: Superintendent, principal and/or teacher
surveys, and interviews with select participants.
Rhode Island has already committed to the “School as a
Tool” (SAAT) effort where new publicly funded schools or
those scheduled for renovation must sign a commitment
to incorporate EE curriculum in their school. A first wave
assessment of how SAAT schools have achieved
implementing EE curriculum could offer both an initial
benchmark of how SAAT is supporting EL and exemplar
data concerning the leadership that implemented the
program.
Initiative 1: Leadership and Partnerships
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 9
Another effort will focus on the Board of Regents current
supporters’ values and concerns. It was noted that much
of this effort is strategic identification of relationships that
have been established in the past and developing
partnerships and contact rubrics to report back on the
political support for the EL effort. It should not be
assumed that support has remained stable. Developing a
strategy map that identifies those willing to champion EL
initiatives will be useful for designing an appeal campaign
that can advance EL efforts across the state.
The group also suggested that a similar team be
developed to focus on members of the General
Assembly’s education committee, the Governors office
staff responsible for education and family initiatives, the
Director of the Department of Environmental
Management, and federal level elected official’s offices.
As noted in the introduction, a team should be convened
to focus on the Superintendent Association, school
principal’s and school committees associations to
determine the state of support and priority setting for EL.
Lastly, this same assessment team should map the state
and interest in supporting national funders and media
partners as part of a strategy plan for the state.
Some considerations for how to map individuals as key
supporters:
• Leaders’ understanding of the “Big Picture”
• Democratic environment in which they work
• Potential as a lead communicator or supporter
• Connections with the local community or ability to support
• Are they informed enough to assess current EL in schools or what resources can be provided to help them.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 10
Table 2. Timeline for Leadership & Partnerships
Time Activity Reporting
Q1 Establishment of Chair and five Working Groups
Confirm commitment from a Chair for each initiative and support team
Establish coordinator meeting schedules
Establish team meeting dates & intersection meeting for cross-group collaboration
Confirm working group teams and identify key points where intersection meetings should occur
Q2 Set first activities in motion
Develop an integrated schedule with key reporting dates and communications tree to ensure leveraging of resources
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q3 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes
Identify & develop remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict
Identify key partners for NGSS measurement alignment
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q4 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes
Monitor, report, update remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict and NGSS partnership opportunities
Develop annual report on results to date
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders. Identify revisions to the plan based on data collected to date, develop first benchmark report for each of the four initiatives, what is known, what are the next steps, and how are others helping.
Q5 Year 2 Activities commence Updates due at coordination meeting
Q6 Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes Updates due at coordination meeting
Q7 Continued action per each plan
Monitor, report, update remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict
Coordinate with Initiative 3 to Lay foundations for first state-wide assessment
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q8 Continued action per plan
Develop annual report on results to date
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders. Identify updates to the plan and report on benchmark data
Q9 Revisit working group structure and consider additions and restructuring
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q10 Continued action per plan/ Launch state-wide assessment strategy Updates due at coordination meeting
Q11 Continued action per plan and first wave data analysis Updates due at coordination meeting
Q12 Share results of first state-wide assessment of Rhode Island K-12 EL
Develop next wave of ongoing assessment and institutional support process
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 11
The workshop attempted to inventory how EE pedagogy
is being practiced by teachers in Rhode Island, the degree
to which they are engaging in project-based learning
(PBL), and where PBL is environmentally themed. To date,
there has not been a comprehensive assessment of how
EE focused schools are operating, nor is there consensus
on themes or exemplars of leading practices. During the
workshop it also became apparent that the NAAEE
published Guidelines for Excellence which articulate
concepts central to EE practice that have demonstrable
impacts on EL are not being used to benchmark practice
in the state.
Therefore, it was agreed that RIEEA should sponsor a
specific focus on professional development (PD) and
practice research that can report on the pursuit of
excellence in the state. This group of RIEEA practitioners
could pursue a self-study and research effort to describe
the range of existing programs and practices and how
they are working to advance their work based on the
Guidelines for Excellence. They might focus on identifying
how many Rhode Island teachers are taking their PD or
using their services at schools or off-site (and in what
manners; one-offs, long-term at school, repeated field
trips, etc.). While not a traditional survey strategy, by
working as a collaborative, this group of practitioners
could focus on gathering data on what tools EE
practitioners are using at schools that have committed to
EE to determine the human capital in the school systems
and how they are utilizing EE tools. They gave the
example that having a school garden is great, but only if it
is used for instruction and to provide healthy food. This
group also felt that an internal assessment within
committed EE teachers could identify the degree to which
tenacious teachers who spearhead EE find support or feel
resistance to their practice.
Based on these ideas, it was recommended that a distinct
RIEEA practitioner Community of Practice (CoP) be
launched to undertake a self-reflective and CoP action
research effort. Through partnership with an academic
familiar with Action Research theory, this group will focus
on assessment tools, self-refection and outreach as a
study group. It will be able to respond to the urgent need
to assess EE impacts by experimenting and sharing results
and solutions in a learning community.
A workshop participant/academic leader (Bisaccio) agreed
to facilitate the Action Research effort so the practitioner
network could be convened. It was noted that this group
would not focus on representativeness, but rather, where
EE innovators are leading practice within the state and
their administrative context.
Some discussion items recommended that this group
tackle Integrated Environmental Education (IEE, Formerly
Green School Pedagogy) as part of their data gathering.
Initiative 2: Striving for Excellence in Practice
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 12
They felt there needed to be a consistent measuring effort
for competency and growth in competency. Integrated EE
is in many respects just good pedagogy. It just happens to
be multi-disciplinary with a focus on the environment.
Integrated EE is likely to be implemented in some form in
all types of schools (fully IEE, partial IEE, and no IEE focus).
Things that can be measured are:
• Field work;
• Attendance;
• Integrated outdoor experiences rather than
unstructured play/free time outside;
• Integrated disciplinary focus around the environment;
• Efforts in the community, especially formal
partnerships;
• Local and global connections being explicitly taught;
and
• Service and stewardship that is student led and
teacher/admin supported.
For all of these measures, the workshop participants felt it
would be important to quantify the frequency of each of
those seven aspects of EE practice at each school, or at
least a representative sample of all schools from across
the state. These measures would support quantitative
analysis the conditions supporting development of EL
more accurately for the entire student population. This will
probably be accomplished through a teacher survey.
Some assessments may already exist that can give us
some of the following data: Attendance, pre/post EL tests,
the environment as an integrating factor, how many
Environmental Technology and Science schools and
Expeditionary Learning schools that are in the state, and
the peace schools movement.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 13
Table 3. Timeline for Striving for Excellence in Practice
Time Activity Reporting
Q1 Establishment of Leadership, Advisory and Collaborators group
Confirm commitment from participants and schedule for meetings and discussion forums (logistics)
Establish tentative meeting/reporting schedules to the larger effort
Sign a participation commitment for teachers and administrators
Establish learning community of practice
Confirm meeting dates & intersection meeting for cross-group collaboration
Launch first meeting and clarify shared goals and objectives
Q2 Set first goals in motion
Develop an integrated schedule with key reporting dates and communications tree to ensure leveraging of resources
Review and consider Guidelines for Excellence.as practice research
Updates due at coordination meeting
Identify opportunities for the assessment of embedded data and goals for measures
Test first thesis
Q3 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes
Identify & develop remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q4 Continued action per each plan
Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes with other efforts
Develop reporting strategy on the state of the community of practice
Develop annual report on results to date
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders Identify results and next steps for the community of practices
Q5 Year 2 Expanding the circle
Invite a wider circle of EE practitioners to join the learning circle, develop working groups for each context and K-12 developmental cohort
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q6 Identify and celebrate key cross-initiative successes Updates due at coordination meeting
Q7 Continued action per each plan
Monitor, report, update remediation plan for cross-initiatives in conflict, consider opportunities to intersect with other EL initiatives
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q8 Update action plan
Develop participant feedback on impacts and support annual report on results to date and next steps
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders Identify updates to the plan and report on benchmark data
Q9 Commence first state-wide assessment of committed EE leaders, and the administrative context for their work
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q10 Continued action per plan/ consolidate findings from state-wide assessment of practices
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q11 Continued action per plan and first wave data analysis Updates due at coordination meeting
Q12 Develop next wave of ongoing assessment and institutional support process
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 14
The first two efforts focus on assessing the contexts
promoting EL. This third domain seeks to provide
quantitative data describing the overall state of EL literacy
in the K-12 school population as an ongoing assessment.
As noted in the introduction, the goal is to provide
representative sampling from across the state, to minimize
burden, and to repeat these assessments annually to
maintain a status report on EL.
Initiative 2 outlined a landscape study for the most
promising practices and practitioners. It recognized that
these leadership assessments do not represent the overall
learning landscape in K-12. A suggestion was raised to
randomly sample as often as possible to reduce burden
but still maintain statistical power. Finally, it may seek to
focus on what students gain from existing EE efforts.
The workshop participants recommended that all
assessment strategies focus on parsimony in data
collection. They felt that data should be limited to the
quantity required to estimate the range of learning
outcomes in K-12 rather than measures of every student in
every school. The group questioned when in-school
learning was all that contributed to EL or if some learning
was redundant based on family opportunities and learning
outside of school. There was a suggestion that this effort
could focus on potential interaction effects that should be
teased out in overall assessments to avoid crediting
school programs with natural learning from outdoor
experience.
Another challenge is to balance learning between
cognition vs. behavior change that can result in
sustainability based on behavioral norms. In considering
these factors, it was recommended that ideally, measures
would be developed either as an addendum to existing
tests or as embedded work product assessment that
considered how curriculum outputs themselves could be
scored on a rubric to describe the learning outcomes. For
the former, it may be possible to develop questions in
conjunction with NGSS measures to reduce the burden if
support could be gathered through Initiative 1.
At present, there does not seem to be comprehensive PD,
even though some notable PD programs continue to draw
new teachers and advance their skills that should be
measurable among the student population. Therefore, it
was recommended that secondary datasets confirm if
student outcomes are triangulated to whether their
teachers participated in formal PD programs. Despite the
presence in an EE PD program, some teachers may be
more likely to have an EE focus that can enhance EL
outcomes whether or not they participate in the PD
Initiative 3: Monitoring the Status of K-12 Environmental Literacy
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 15
efforts. Therefore, this domain of measurement should
assess teachers’ pedagogical approaches and perceptions
of how their practices lead to EL for comparison with
actual test results.
Instructional Practices and Indicators of EL
The group felt that RI teachers were incorporating a range
of curricula that have demonstrable links to EL outcomes.
They listed NGSS, EE, STEM, integrated instruction, and
others as all having causal links to EL. They also described
current EE efforts such as outdoor experiences, cross
cutting concepts, projects that spiral, field
research/studies where students generate and pose
questions and develop models, as supportive practices
that have not been quantified nor mapped to statewide
EL outcomes. It would seem that all are paths to
advancing EL but they may have differential learning
outcomes. Therefore, it is suggested that those measures
be delayed until after Initiative 2 has an opportunity to
report on their efforts before completing this aspect of the
work.
Indicators of EL
The workshop participants felt there was need for
experimentation in metric development before settling on
a final strategy. They suggested that measures should
focus on students’ use of critical thinking to
design/engineer solutions to environmental problems as a
task that is both measurable and true to practice. Here,
the group recognized the need for a stratified learning
goal where integration emerges in the sciences, the
humanities and the arts. These measures might be
stratified to explore where operational literacy is emerging
as excellence, but focus on a primary goal of measuring
functional EL. For example, in a synthesis test, it may be
possible to ask students to solve a grade level appropriate
environmental action problems, ideally using STEM
approaches. Do students use STEM thinking to
experience nature, build connections, and engage with
the environment? This type of intervention could be
considered embedded if students were asked to complete
the task rather than a learning experience followed by a
test.
Physical Environment of Schools
The group also recognized that some measures of EL are
context learning based and can emerge through
integration with the physical environment, the school
building, and overall access to nature as part of daily life.
Therefore, it was suggested that schools be assessed as a
parallel measure for all students taking any assessment at
that school. These physical assets may correlate with
student outcomes and therefore may be valuable assets
that can partially explain score variation.
The workshop participants recommended a battery of
descriptive measures that could be captured annually
from the school without burden on students and
instructional time. These include the school’s strategic
plan, school improvement plans, the school’s use of
outdoors as part of learning, and whether students have
access to programs (energy and water conservation,
gardening, composting, etc.) that can contribute to EL.
They also suggested that these data include
presence/absence and/or principal rating of the likelihood
their formal partnerships might contribute to advancing EL
in their student population.
It was suggested that much of the data mentioned above
may already be available from other sources such as state
and local governments, Google maps, GIS sources,
wellness scores, green space, tree cover, and other data
repositories. In parallel, many RI cities are developing
sustainability efforts, which could be explored as a
variable that may have impact on EL outcomes.
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 16
Based on these potential variables that could correlate
with student EL outcomes, participants suggested that the
measurement strategy consider pilot testing at a model
school where some students are bus commuters while
others are resident in the town working on sustainability
programs. The effort to identify and clean these data
represents valuable work given the lack of information on
how context informs advancement of EL.
The group also felt a focus on environmental equity
including: proximity to nature or tree-cover; other
affordances of nature; and access to healthy food as an
important measure. They noted that many schools use a
caterer that serves processed food that may not offer
good nutrition. These observational data may suggest
possible mitigating variables that advance or hinder EL
practice.
The group noted that it is possible to assemble some of
these datasets today, pulling from multiple sources and
integrating them into one GIS measurement tool and
status of the landscape around the school.
It was recommended that the NAAEE framework be
referenced and utilized as the EL assessment plan is
developed. In addition to the potential RIDE led EL
aligned STEM assessments, additional assessments could
be focused on:
1. Attitudes and Actions (ideally actual actions, but data
on verbal commitment or intention to act would also
work).
2. Portfolios to show growth of students and what topics
they are choosing to focus on. How are the students
civically engaging with environmental issues?
3. Establishing a baseline (state of the state) but also
measuring growth over time.
Table 4. Potential process and output measures (see
appendix for references)
Input/Process Measures Output Measures
School leadership
School vision
Improvement plans
Student Input
Topic/problem selection
Supports for this process
School/Community Resources
Staff Agency
School Culture
Curriculum Relevance
Community Engagement
PD for superintendents, principals, teachers
Self-assessment on some items
Time to Reflect
Dosage and frequency of EE instruction
Continual and growing student input
Increased Staff Agency
Students’ engagement and passion for chosen topics/issues
Effects on the community (how are the students improving things?)
Student transformation:
Attitudes
Self-efficacy
Connectedness, new connections
Sense of places/character
Service and Stewardship
Academic success
Self assessment and reflection on results
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 17
Table 5. Timeline for Monitoring Status of K-12 EL
Time Activity Reporting
Q1 Establishment of Leadership, Advisory Council
Confirm commitment from participants and schedule for meetings and discussion forums (logistics)
Establish tentative meeting/reporting schedules to the larger effort
Confirm meeting dates & intersection meeting for cross-group collaboration
Launch first meeting and clarify shared goals and objectives
Q2 Confirm fit of existing instruments or questions to NGSS, new measures requiring development, and those measures not part of NGSS that will explore other aspects of EL
Develop an development schedule for new instruments and leadership for each measurement strategy
Review and consider Guidelines for Excellence.as practice research
Updates due at coordination meeting
Identify opportunities for the assessment of embedded data and goals for measures
Q3 Develop partnership site relationships for pilot testing
Coordinate with Initiative 1 team on NGSS opportunities
Develop pilot instruments for testing
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q4 Manage IRB review for instrument testing
Identify datasets that can be used for predictive mapping of context variables
Secure commitment from GIS data management team
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders Identify results and next steps for the assessment strategy
Q5 Pilot testing instruments at a representative sample of RI schools
Undertake first context variable pilot study
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q6 Data analysis and report publication Updates due at coordination meeting
Q7 Modify and update survey tools and confirm validity of context variables
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q8 Update action plan
Develop participant feedback on impacts and support annual report on results to date and next steps
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders Identify updates to the plan and report on benchmark data
Q9 Commence first state-wide assessment K-12 EL Updates due at coordination meeting
Q10 Data analysis Updates due at coordination meeting
Q11 Report development Updates due at coordination meeting
Q12 Finalize ongoing assessment strategy Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 18
The final assessment focused on expanding
understanding of how an ELP can support a range of
goals for state organizations and NGOs. Unlike other
measures that focus on documenting the cause, effect and
outcome of EE programs toward EL, this effort focuses on
how a fully realized, integrated EE approach may help
support other organizations’ priorities.
Therefore, this small action committee of RIEEA would
undertake a long range set of meetings to describe core
partners’ goals and outcomes, to align that work with what
the literature suggests can be accomplished through EE
practice. They would ideally be able to present scenarios
to these stakeholders about what benefits accrue from an
environmentally literate citizenry.
Therefore, this working group will develop a long-range
outreach strategy to join organizations (including public
agencies and advocacy groups and collectives) to learn
about their goals and objectives, to develop alignment
and “common interest” educational goals that can be
further reported in future years.
It was noted by participants that many of these agencies,
i.e.: RIDE, Dept of Health, DEM, peripheral education, are
not tied to state funding nor state mandates. However,
this does not preclude engaging with them to address
these issues alongside Head Start, Higher Ed, and other
non-RIDE agencies, such as the land trust and
conservation districts not covered by DEM.
It was suggested that this team focus on small partner
alignment meetings to map strategic plans to support
such as problem solving, systems thinking, access to
natural spaces, healthy spaces, going outside, PD and
leadership support.
As with all other initiatives, cross-walking these data will
help expand understanding of the learning affordances
across the state.
Initiative 4: EL Supporting a Better Rhode Island
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 19
Table 6. Timeline for Supporting a Better RI
Time Activity Reporting
Q1 Establishment of Leadership and Collaborators group
Confirm commitment from participants and schedule for meetings and discussion forums (logistics)
Establish tentative meeting/reporting schedules to the larger effort.
Identify priority list of contacts
Establish learning community of practice.
Confirm meeting dates & intersection meeting for cross-group collaboration
Launch first meeting and clarify shared goals and objectives
Q2 Hold 6 stakeholder meetings
Meet to identify crosswalked EL contribution to partner goals
Send individualized summary to stakeholders
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q3 Hold 6 new stakeholder meetings
Meet to identify crosswalked EL contribution to partner goals
Send individualized summary to stakeholders
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q4 Hold 3 stakeholder meetings
Coordinate EL contribution to a Better RI synthesis report
Send full report to stakeholders
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders Identify results and next steps for the community of practices
Q5 Reconnect with Stakeholders
Transition supporters to Initiative 1 team
Identify new Stakeholder organizations.
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q6 Hold 6 new stakeholder meetings
Meet to identify crosswalked EL contribution to partner goals
Send individualized summary to stakeholders
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q7 Hold 6 new stakeholder meetings
Meet to identify crosswalked EL contribution to partner goals
Send individualized summary to stakeholders
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q8 Hold 3 stakeholder meetings
Coordinate EL contribution to a Better RI synthesis report
Send full report to stakeholders
Update action plan
Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders Identify updates to the plan and report on benchmark data
Q9 Reconnect with Stakeholders
Transition supporters to Initiative 1 team
Identify new Stakeholder organizations
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q10 Develop collective support plan to report on state of EL to stakeholders
Updates due at coordination meeting
Q11 Work with Initiative 3 to identify sub-report needs for stakeholders Updates due at coordination meeting
Q12 Publish stakeholder updates (1 page) on EL in K-12 for a Better RI Annual report on the plan for distribution to RIEEA members and stakeholders
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 20
Table 7. Commonly used environmental literacy instruments
Metrics and Measures Appendix
Instrument Grade Range Components Measured Context
Children’s Environmental Attitude and Knowledge Scale (CHEAKS)
1-7 Verbal Commitment (VC), Actual Commitment (AC), Environmental Affect, Ecological Knowledge (EK)
Widely used in grades 2-7 on its own and as a portion of other instruments.
New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale of Children
4-6 Rights of Nature, Human Exemptionalism, Eco-Crisis
Based on the NEP scale which doesn’t come from the same theoretical framework as EL.
Children’s Environmental Affect Scale (CEAS)
4-8 (potentially 4-12)
Environmental Attitude, Environmental Sensitivity, Willingness to take environmental action
National assessment of 4th and 5th graders in Turkey (Erdogan & Marcinkowski, 2015).
Environmental Scale (2-MEV) 4-8 Preservation of Nature, Utilization of Nature
Used in many studies; different theoretical framework than most EL instruments (Johnson & Manoli, 2011)
Modified Children’s Environmental Perceptions Scale (CEPS)
4-8 Eco-learning and behavioral, Eco-appreciation, Eco-impact awareness
Surveyed grade 4, 5 & 7 in Michigan. (Bergman, 2016)
Middle School Environmental Literacy Survey (MSELS)
6-8 (potentially down to 4)
EK, VC, AC, Environmental Sensitivity, Issue Identification, Issue Analysis, Action Planning
Most recently used instrument for US National EL Assessment, grades 6-8 ( McBeth & Volk, 2010)
Ecology Attitude Knowledge Survey (EAK)
High school and Adults
EK, VC, AC, Environmental Affect
Maloney, M, Ward, M., Braucht, G. (1975).
Secondary School Environmental Literacy Assessment Instrument (SSELI)
9-12 Multiple scales similar to MSELS
High school students (Marcinkowski & Rehrig, 1995)
Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 21
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Rhode Island Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan 25
Aleeza Oshry, HHMI Science Education Fellow
Bora Simmons, Ph.D., National Project for Excellence in
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Brandee Lapisky, The Compass School
Brendan Haggerty, The Greene School
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Desiree Derix, Westerly Middle School
Donna Braun, Center for Leadership and Educational Equity
Elisabeth Bux, RIEEA
Erica Beck Spencer, FOSS,
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Jeanine Silversmith, RIEEA
Jennifer Pereira, Rhode Island Foundation
Joe E. Heimlich, Ph.D., COSI Center for Research and Evaluation &
The Ohio State University
Joel Tolman, Common Ground
John Fraser, Ph.D. AIA, New Knowledge Organization Ltd.
Joseph da Silva, Ph.D., AIA, Rhode Island Department of Education
Joshua LaPlante, The Greene School
Judy Braus, North American Association for Environmental Education
Kathryn Stevenson, Ph.D., North Carolina State University
Kelly Shea, University of Rhode Island, GEMS-Net
Kristen Swanberg, The Trustees in Massachusetts
Lauren Parmelee, Audubon Society of Rhode Island
Melissa K. Herliczek, Providence Country Day School
Molly Allard, Scituate Reservoir Watershed Education Program
Phyllis Lynch, Ph.D., Rhode Island Department of Education
Rachel Holbert, Norman Bird Sanctuary
Robert Mitchell, Cumberland School Department
Sara Sweetman, Ph.D., University of Rhode Island & GEMS-Net
Sarah Bodor, North American Association of Environmental Education
Shareen Knowlton, Roger Williams Park Zoo
Steven Morrone, Chariho Regional Middle School
Susan Zoll, Ph.D., Rhode Island College
Workshop Participants
Rhode Island K-12 Environmental Literacy Assessment Plan
by the Rhode Island Environmental Education Association is
licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Rhode Island Environmental Education Association
PO Box 40884
Providence, RI 02940