The Mary­land Asso­ci­a­tion for Envi­ron­men­tal and Out­door Edu­ca­tion (MAEOE), a non­profit edu­ca­tional asso­ci­a­tion, serves teach­ers, stu­dents, nat­ural resource man­agers, nature cen­ter staff, and envi­ron­men­tal pro­gram man­agers with train­ing pro­grams, work­shops, con­fer­ences, awards pro­grams, net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, pub­li­ca­tions, and related mate­ri­als and resources.  Through these efforts, MAEOE has helped to encour­age, edu­cate, sup­port, and inspire Mary­land edu­ca­tors to build a cit­i­zenry that under­stands and is respon­si­bly engaged in advanc­ing sus­tain­abil­ity to address human needs and to con­serve the Earth’s nat­ural resources.

ACTIVITIES

Mary­land Green School Awards Pro­gram —  This award win­ning and nation­ally rec­og­nized pro­gram is a holis­tic, inte­grated approach to authen­tic learn­ing that incor­po­rates local envi­ron­men­tal issue inves­ti­ga­tion and pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment with envi­ron­men­tal best man­age­ment prac­tices and com­mu­nity stew­ard­ship – a multi-layered approach to envi­ron­men­tal literacy.

• MAEOE coor­di­nates and man­ages a statewide net­work of schools and providers actively invit­ing, encour­ag­ing, and assist­ing schools through the process and hon­or­ing those that suc­cess­fully demon­strate that – over the course of a two-year period -  they met the require­ments in four main cat­e­gories: teacher pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal cur­ric­u­lar inte­gra­tion, envi­ron­men­tal best man­age­ment prac­tices, and com­mu­nity engagement.
• MAEOE pro­vides work­shops and on-line resources to help schools become Green Schools.   To find out more about Mary­land Green Schools visit the web­site:  www.maeoe.org/greenschools/

School­yard Habi­tats Pro­gram:  Excel­lent school­yard habi­tats “give stu­dents a pow­er­ful exam­ple of land stew­ard­ship, pro­vide habi­tat for wildlife, and address local, regional and even global envi­ron­men­tal issues.”  MAEOE pro­vides advice and resources to help schools build authen­tic school­yard habi­tats.  For more infor­ma­tion visit: www.maeoe.org/habitat/

Pro­fes­sional Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tor Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion — a vol­un­tary, statewide cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram for pro­fes­sional envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tors.  It was devel­oped by MAEOE to accom­plish the goal of improv­ing envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion train­ing and mate­ri­als, and increas­ing their use in the for­mal and infor­mal edu­ca­tion are­nas.  More infor­ma­tion can be found at: www.maeoe.org/eecertification/index.php

Annual Con­fer­ence — the MAEOE con­fer­ence has pro­vided edu­ca­tors knowl­edge, skills, and resources for 25 years.  The largest state envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion con­fer­ence in the nation and the only one of its kind in the state is now a four-day, multi-faceted event which caters to the needs of over 700 edu­ca­tors from more than 500 orga­ni­za­tions, schools, agen­cies work­ing in all of Maryland’s coun­ties and within the five neigh­bor­ing states in the Chesa­peake Bay Water­shed.  www.maeoe.org/conference/

Bob Fin­ton Award for Excel­lence in Out­door Edu­ca­tion -  this pro­gram rec­og­nizes an indi­vid­ual who demon­strates lead­er­ship and inno­va­tion in envi­ron­men­tal and out­door edu­ca­tion. Bob Fin­ton per­son­i­fied enthu­si­asm, inno­va­tion, and excel­lence in the field of envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tion. This award hon­ors his mem­ory by reward­ing efforts to strive for these qual­i­ties. www.maeoe.org/conference/finton_award/index.php

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
MAEOE is a col­lec­tive whose work and suc­cess relies on vol­un­teers.  Oppor­tu­ni­ties exist to vol­un­teer one’s time and exper­tise to sup­port MAEOE’s oper­a­tions gen­er­ally or more specif­i­cally asso­ci­ated with any of the pro­grams listed above.

CONTACT
MAEOE
7761 Water­loo Road
Jes­sup, Mary­land 20794
Bron­wyn Mitchell
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
Phone: 443−733−1220 ext 114
E-mail: director@MAEOE.org

WEBSITE
www.maeoe.org/