National Civic Education Project

Earth Day Network’s National Civic Education Project (NCEP) seeks to support teachers and their students from diverse schools across the country to combine civic and environmental education inside their classroom with hands-on learning experiences outside the classroom. These grants allow students and educators to collaborate and act on environmental projects within their local communities.

Earth Day Network strongly believes in creating personal responsibility for the environment among students around the world to promote a more democratically active citizenry. Working from the ground up, the NCEP empowers selected teachers and students to remedy specific environmental concerns in their communities with demonstrable outcomes and results.

The studies of civic and environmental education are closely intertwined and this connection allows students to understand how their actions can influence the environmental health of their own communities. The need to empower residents of low income neighborhoods with the civic skills to address environmental issues in their communities is particularly acute. Residents of “at risk” urban neighborhoods are exposed to higher levels of air and water pollution and are more likely than their suburban counterparts to live near power plants or waste sites. 80% of Hispanic-Americans and 71% of African-Americans live in areas that fail to meet one or more EPA air quality standards (as compared to 57% of Caucasians). African-Americans from 5- 34 years of age are five times more likely to die of asthma than Caucasians.

For more information on our National Civic Education Project, please contact the Education Department at education@earthday.org