The Environmental Literacy Plan for Kansas (ELPK) is the culmination of countless hours of work by many dedicated individuals representing public schools, non-formal environmental education providers, government agencies, businesses, colleges, universities and resource agencies throughout the state to develop a comprehensive plan for advancing environmental literacy in the state. Through the efforts and vision of all partners, Kansas has a plan that insures our Kansas children gain the knowledge, attitudes, skills necessary to become citizens who make informed and responsible personal and collective decisions and choices about our environment and its natural resources.

Environmental education may best be defined as a process directed at creating awareness and understanding about environmental issues which lead to responsible individual and group actions. Successful environmental education focuses on processes that promote critical think-ing, problem solving, and effective decision-making skills. Environmental education utilizes pro-cesses that involve students in observing, measuring, classifying, experimenting, and other data gathering techniques. These processes assist students in discussing, inferring, predicting, and interpreting data about environmental issues. Environmental education is not environmental information. Environmental information is providing facts about specific environmental issues or problems. Environmental education is not environmental advocacy. Quality environmental education concentrates on the educational process. It is non-biased and science-based.

The Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education (KACEE) is the umbrella organization for environmental education in the state of Kansas. Comprised of more than 300 organizations and 250 individuals, KACEE’s vision is an environmentally literate Kansas citizenry, with KACEE as the recognized leader of the state’s conservation and environmental education network. The mission of the organization is to promote and provide effective, non-biased and science-based environmental education to all Kansans. KACEE provided leadership for the de-velopment of the Environmental Education Standards for Kansas, the Environmental Education Plan for Kansas and now the Kansas Environmental Literacy Plan.