Great Barrington, Mass

History

Mission

The Orion Society is an award-winning publisher, an environmental education organization, and a communications and support network for grassroots environmental and community organizations across North America. It is a nonprofit membership organization with 8000 members, individual and organizational, representing all fifty states and thirty-one foreign countries.

The Orion Society's work covers a broad spectrum, including teacher training and model classroom programs that have pioneered "place-based" education, reading tours that have brought leading nature writers and poets to communities in over twenty-five states, conferences such as the historic Watershed Conference held in 1996 at the Library of Congress and our recent millennium conference, Fire & Grit, and a variety of publications and online resources.

(from web site)

Focus Populations

Types of Programs Offered

Publishing: Orion and Orion Afield Magazines, Stories in the Land: A Place-Based Environmental Education Anthology

Organizing: Grassroots Network offers assistance to organizations

Educational initiatives:

The Orion Society is the pioneer of place-based education. Place-based education is the pedagogy of community and seeks as its goal nature literacy -- establishing in the individual a basis of local knowledge to inspire an ethic of humane stewardship and informed decision-making. The Orion Society believes that the future health of our communities depends on nature-literate people working on their home ground to effect change. Toward these ends, we work with educators of all levels from across the country to develop groundbreaking models for place-based, interdisciplinary environmental education, plan national conferences on a variety of topics, publish educational monographs, and sponsor teacher-training institutes with the goal of nature literacy always at the core.(from web site)

Programs:

Stories in the Land Teaching Fellowships

Nature Literacy Series

Orion Institutes: Professional Training Programs for Educators

Bringing the World Alive

Forgotten Languages Tours

Application Information and Costs

Employment Information/Resources

Contact Information

Website: http://www.orionsociety.org

Mail: 195 Main StreetGreat Barrington, Massachusetts 01230

Phone (888)-909-6568

Fax: (413)-528-0676