Natural Resources Curriculum Certification

This class gives educators an incredible opportunity to achieve certification, training and all teaching materials, in America's best known conservation education curricula. It often takes educators years to locate and register for these individual workshops but at the Academy of Natural Resources, participants get them all. All classes mix outdoor activities along with indoor study to make each session educational and entertaining.

Project Learning Tree, America's oldest nationwide conservation curriculum was created in the 1970's by the American Forest Foundation in an attempt to get American classrooms more familiar with America's forests and forest management techniques. The K-12 curriculum soon became supported by the United States Forest Service and state forestry agencies across the United States. Project Learning Tree (PLT) is environmental education at its best. In Michigan, PLT is coordinated by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Project WILD followed up on the success of Project Learning Tree when Fish and Wildlife Agencies from the western United States created a similar curriculum focusing on America's wildlife resources. With wildlife as the main theme, its popularity grew until, like PLT, all 50 states had coordinators and workshop facilitators.

More than one million teachers have "gone wild" in the more than 25 years that Project WILD has been offered across the US. In Michigan, Project WILD is coordinated by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and supported by the Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education (MAEOE)

Project WET originated in 1984 by the North Dakota State Water Commission but soon was adopted and enhanced by Montana State University and after pilot programs in Montana, Idaho, and Arizona became a major force in Environmental Education. WET, much like PLT and WILD, is a K-12 curriculum that focuses on a specific natural resource, water quality and conservation. In Michigan, Project WET is coordinated by Grand Valley State University Annis Water Resources Institute

The Leopold Education Project (LEP), coordinated nationally by Pheasants Forever, targets both an educational and philosophical look at our nations natural resources. Based on the writing and teaching of conservationist Aldo Leopold, LEP brings a different approach to environmental education and explores a more in depth view of issues and outdoor inquiry.

All of these programs and materials are incredible learning opportunities as individual workshops as they are primarily offered by the sponsoring organizations. ANR is the only place in Michigan where all four are offered in a collaborative course.

View the 2012 agenda.