About EEI
The City of Dallas Environmental Education Initiative (EEI) is a K-12th grade school and community outreach program administered by the Science Education Laboratory (SEL) group at the University of North Texas. The teachers within the UNT SEL wrote and developed TEKS and TAKS correlated lessons, which are designed to help prepare today’s students to become more scientifically literate and to inspire them to become our future scientists, economists, and green technology leaders. The program is a partnership between the City of Dallas Water Utilities Water Conservation Division, City of Sanitation Services and The University of North Texas (Denton, Campus).
The City of Dallas Environmental Education Initiative (EEI) consists of K-5 inclass lessons, which use the environment to teach select Science and Social Science academic standards. Middle School exhibits, which highlight aspects of water conservation and recycling, are brought as a “Museum on Wheels” to participating middle schools within the city of Dallas. These hands-on exhibits remain at the participating school for one week during which a certified teacher from the UNT SEL facilitates student interactions and teaches them about water conservation and recycling. Another aspect of the program includes summer recycling camps for elementary and middle school students and a paid summer internship for high school students , which brings 2-4 junior or senior level high school students to the UNT SEL for six weeks to conduct research about water conservation within the City of Dallas.
Teacher Professional Development
The EEI program also provides professional development for city of Dallas K-8 teachers. These 3-hour professional development sessions consist of teacher participation in the hands-on lessons to foster teacher efficacy in science. Each participating teacher receives classroom kits of materialsin order to facilitate the implementation of the lessons within classrooms throughout the city of Dallas.