Advocacy - Full and active support for and representation of an individual group, cause or idea. (1)

Assessment - the process of collecting, synthesizing and interpreting information to determine program effectiveness and aid evaluation.

Awareness - the process of becoming aware of objects, qualities or relations via the senses - involves the reception, processing, and interpretation of impressions. (1)

Colorado Model Content Standards - See Colorado Department of Education.

Ecology - study of the interrelationships between organisms and their environment. (1)

Ecological Identity -refers to all the different ways people construe themselves in relationship to the earth as manifested in personality, values, actions, and sense of self. (2)

Environment - surrounding conditions, forces or factors potentially capable of influencing, modifying or interacting with an organism, material or other entity. (3)

Environmental Education - see Section I of Colorado Environmental Education Master Plan

Environmental Educator - Any individual, program, or organization that provides environmental education.

Environmental Issue - related to, but distinguished from an environmental problem. An environmental issue reflects the presence of differing perspectives on possible solutions to an environmental problem. (3)

Environmental Literacy - requires a fundamental understanding of the systems of the natural world, the relationships and interactions between the living and the non-living environment and the ability to deal sensibly with problems that involve scientific evidence, uncertainty, and economic, aesthetic, and ethical considerations. (1)

Environmental Problem - related to, but distinguished from, an environmental issue. An environmental problem results from an interaction between human activity and the environment.(3)

Formal Learning - the hierarchically structured, chronologically graded 'education system', running from primary school through the university and including, in addition to general academic studies, a variety of specialized programs and institutions for full-time technical and professional training. (4)

Goal - a desired outcome from an activity. (3)

Informal Learning - situations in which learning can occur without formal or traditional direction from an instructor. (3) The truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment - from family and neighbors, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media. (5)

Interdisciplinary - a knowledge view and curriculum approach that applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, or experience. (3)

Learner centered instruction - instructional methods that are driven by the individual needs of the student rather than externally imposed goals or objectives. (3)

Non-formal Education - any organized educational activity outside the established formal system - whether operating separately or as an important feature of some broader activity - that is intended to serve identifiable learning clientèles and learning objectives. (5)

Objective - a statement of a specific measurable or observable result desired form an activity. (3)

Research - Investigation into a subject in order to discover facts, to establish or revise a theory, or to develop a plan of action based on the facts discovered.

Self-efficacy - one's ability, or attitude about that ability, to be a catalyst or agent of change in one's own life and in situations involving others. (3)

Service Learning - learning in which the student takes part in a project or activity that is beneficial to some segment of the community. (3)

Stakeholders - those who have an interest in a particular decision, either as individuals or representatives of a group. This includes people who influence a decision, or can influence it, as well as those affected by it. (6)

Systemic - a global conception of the problem and an understanding of the interrelationships and interconnections. Using a systemic view, we develop ways of finding out about the mass of inter-relationships which exist between the different components of systems as well as finding out about the components themselves and we have to find out about the relationships which exist between the whole system and the environment in which it exists. When one change is made in a system, it impacts other related parts of a system (subsystems) and causes other sometimes unpredictable changes. This is because of interconnectedness. (5)

Sustainability - meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (7)

Wilderness - an environmental condition that is characterized by a naturally developed life community undisturbed by human activity. (1)