§5507 Environmental Education Awards

Summary

The Administrator must create national awards to honor outstanding work in environmental education. Four required awards are named: the Theodore Roosevelt Award for a top career in environmental education or teaching; the Henry David Thoreau Award for excellent writing about nature and pollution; the Rachael Carson Award for outstanding print, film, or broadcast work that teaches the public about environmental issues; and the Gifford Pinchot Award for work on education about forestry and natural resource management. The Environmental Education Advisory Council (under section 5508) must nominate winners. The Administrator may also offer President’s Environmental Youth Awards for K–12 students with great local projects. The Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, for the President, may run a program to honor K–12 teachers and their local education agencies for innovative environmental teaching. One teacher and that teacher’s local agency from each State, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico may be selected. Each selected teacher may receive up to $2,500 for professional development, and the employing local agency may receive up to $2,500 to fund environmental education activities. Those agency funds cannot be used for construction, general expenses, salaries, bonuses, or other administrative costs.