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Missouri Summit on Environmental Literacy

February 8-9, 2005 - MU Campus, Columbia, MO

You may have heard the word “summit” being tossed around lately, and you may be wondering what this is all about. Missouri is one of eight lucky states to have received grant funds through a program managed by the Environmental Education Training and Partnership (EETAP) program at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point and funded by the United State Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This funding has enabled MEEA to plan a variety of activities that include Regional Forums, internal assessment and reorganization, the MEEA Certification Program, and much more.

This flurry of activity over the last four years led us to the “EE Campus” event held October 29-31 in Columbia and on toward the Missouri Summit on Environmental Literacy coming up February 8-9, 2005. The idea for a Summit was hatched this time last year with the notion that all EE stakeholders should know what one another is doing, and to make sure we’re all pulling in the same direction, i.e., “building capacity.” A small group met in December ’04 and compiled a list of EE stakeholders, about 30 of which came to planning sessions on June 16 and October 29, 2004. We have hired Stacia Stelk to help us plan!

The main purpose of the Summit is to examine the 1994 “Report and Recommendations of the Governor’s Task Force on Environmental Education: Creating an Environmentally Literate Citizenry” to determine which objectives have been met, and what needs to be done next. We hope to come out of this Summit with a renewed sense of what we have accomplished in the past eight years and where we want to be ten or more years from now. If you want more information, contact Jim Lubbers at jim.lubbers@dnr.mo.gov or call 800-361-4827.