About the EEC
The Environmental Education Collaborative (EEC) is a grassroots alliance that works to elevate environmental education to a new level of importance and urgency.
The EEC strives to develop resources that support environmental education programs, so that everyone has the opportunity to experience nature and to learn about caring for our natural resources.
The EEC works to:
• bring funding to the region to increase environmental literacy
• develop a resource network to support and promote existing programs
• monitor and influence environmental education policy and initiatives.
We invite you to join with us in supporting the EEC of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.
Are you concerned about the care of our natural world and the future of our children?
Help Elevate Environmental Literacy with the EEC
Join the Environmental Education Collaborative (EEC), a grassroots organization that works to increase funding, programs, and policies for environmental education (EE) in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. EEC is an inclusive network that promotes existing programs at non-formal sites, including nature centers, parks, museums, and outdoor camps. We collaborate with teachers, school districts, program providers, businesses, and organizations. With people like you and the support of over
50 local partners, we can elevate EE to a new level of importance and urgency.
Visit our website to sign up for our free, periodic newsletter.
- Attend our monthly meetings.
- Join our social media sites and share your events at our
Facebook Group page.
All EEC organizational members are provided a free basic listing on our website and when we reprint the Environmental Learning Resources guide.
History of the Environmental Education Collaborative
During 2014, a variety of organizations met to explore how Environmental Education (EE) funding, influence, and networking might be improved in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Diana Fox of Reach Out, a social service non-profit, facilitated for the group’s planning efforts. The participants selected the Stanford University Collaborative Impact Model to follow and became the EE Collaborative Task Force. The original participants included:
- The Community Foundation (now Inland Empire Community Foundation and our fiscal sponsor)
- Riverside Land Conservancy (now Rivers and Lands Conservancy)
- Santa Rosa Plateau Nature Education Foundation
- The Wildlands Conservancy
- Reach Out
- Santa Ana Watershed Association
- CREEC (California Regional Environmental Education Community, now defunded in our region).
The Task Force gained support from Riverside and San Bernardino Counties’ Offices of Education and reviewed five documents that validated the need for a local EE initiative:
- California’s Environmental Education Initiative (EEI)
- the Inland Empire Community Foundation’s Environmental Initiative
- the California Department of Education’s Blue Print for Environmental Literacy
- and initiatives of the Children and Nature Network and North American Association of Environmental Education (NAAEE).
The first EEC Symposium was held in February of 2015 with over 120 participants from 75+ organizations who shared ideas and laid the foundation for beginning the Environmental Education Collaborative (EEC). Since then, an annual symposium has been used to share and gather resources, grow a network, and work toward EEC’s goals:
- to engage and influence funders, community members, and businesses to support an Environmental Education program resulting in increased environmental literacy
- to identify, promote, and leverage existing EE programs and resources
- to influence local and state environmental education policy and initiatives.
EEC Board & Advisory Board
Board & Committee Leads
Jackie Gardner | Co-Chair | jgardner@sanjacinto.k12.ca.us |
Jenifer Lopez-Valdez | Co-Chair | jenifer.l@twc-ca.org |
Mary Valdemar | Equality and Justice | mvaldema@valleycollege.edu |
Jen Futterman | Art & Writing Contest | jenniferevefutterman@gmail.com |
Carol Kinzel | Outreach Chair | kinzel1812@aol.com |
Diana Ruiz | Treasurer | ruiz@rcrcd.org |
Caroline Conway | c-conway@earthlink.net | |
Pam Johnson | Prior Chair | pamjohnson@ecosinstitute.com |
Celia Cudiamat | IE Community Foundation | ccudiamat@iegives.org |
Our Sponsors
EEC would like to thank all the organizations that support this work. Please see our many symposium sponsors under symposium.
Grantors
EEC would like to thank all the organizations that support this work.
