Leopold Education Project

As we celebrate the legacy of Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife ecology in the United States, I wanted to share an amazing resource for teachers: The Leopold Education Project.  The LEP is an interdisciplinary environmental education curriculum. Targeted mainly to middle school and high school students, it can also be adapted for use with families, adults, and elementary age children.

Its goal is to create an ecologically literate citizenry by heightening student awareness of the natural world; fine-tuning the skills necessary to read the landscape; and instilling a love, admiration, and respect for the land so that each individual may develop a personal land ethic.

The objectives of the Leopold Education Project are:

• To share Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, his legacy, and his writings with educators, students, and families.
• To instill in learners, through direct experience, an appreciation and respect of the natural world so they may develop a positive relationship with the land.
• To advance learners’ scientific understanding of the land community’s natural processes so that they may make informed decisions about conservation and land use issues.
• To advance learners’ critical thinking skills through hands-on/minds-on activities.

The Leopold Education Project curriculum facilitates interdisciplinary exploration of both the arts and sciences.  The curriculum is designed to help students understand human connections to the natural world through hands-on, inquiry-based, outdoor experiences, building skills in observation, plant and animal identification, land stewardship, natural history, writing and reflection, and environmental values.

The LEP curriculum is distributed by a volunteer network of State Coordinators, who organize workshops to train formal and non-formal educators throughout the country. LEP State Coordinators also have access to discounted rates on the LEP curriculum, so workshops are an excellent (and economical) opportunity to add Leopold’s land ethic to your teaching toolbox.

To learn more and to find a state coordinator or purchase this LEP curriculum, visit The Aldo Leopold Foundation.

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