Local environmental education could get a boost now that the House Natural Resources Committee has voted to pass legislation to formalize and expand the Bay-Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) Regional Program and National Literacy Grant Program. Introduced by Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), the Ocean, Coastal, and Watershed Education Act is designed to improve ocean, coastal, and watershed education and literacy. Capps chose to introduce the bill with Congressman Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Congressman Sam Farr (D-CA) after “seeing the good work that the B-WET program has done in her own congressional district for the past several years,” according to a press release. “This is great progress for this important legislation,” Capps said in the release. “In so many ways, the health of our communities relies on the health of our watersheds. As we are inundated with reports of climate change, over-fishing, wildfires, and droughts, children need ways to connect—through hands-on experiences—to their environment. How else can they understand the importance of their actions and the significance of what we are fighting to protect?”
This article appears in Dec 3-10, 2009.