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Linking
Criteria
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has several environmental
education (EE) portal Web sites:
This document explains how we choose the sites we link to. This may
be of interest to you as a site visitor, parent or teacher. If you have
a Web site you'd like us to link to, then this information may be very
helpful.
Who chooses the links?
The EE Web Workgroup, made up of environmental education, communication
and technical experts from across EPA. The group meets monthly to evaluate
new links and update the EE portal Web sites. We continually look for
Web sites to supplement our content. All must meet our quality criteria.
Our audiences
We design our portals for specific target audiences. (Grades and ages
may very for certain content.)
- Kids: grades pre-K–5 or ages 4–10; we only link to EPA or
other federal government sites.
- Students: grades 6–8 or ages 11–13; we link to EPA sites,
other federal, state and local government sites, and educational sites.
- High School: grades 9–12 or ages 14–18; we link to EPA and
other government sites, educational sites, and some non-government
sites.
- Teachers: classroom, home school, or non-classroom instructors
for youth grades pre-K–12 or ages 4–18; we link to EPA and other government
sites, educational sites, and some non-government sites.
Our quality requirements (How we evaluate the sites we link to)
Does it fit EPA's mission?
- The topic must support EPA's mission to protect human health
and the environment.
- The site provides good quality environmental education. We expect
the content we link to will follow the guidelines set forth
in the 1996 Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence published
by the North
American Association for Environmental Education.
- We link to EPA content first and foremost, but we will consider
links to sites from other sources if their information is essential
to fill a gap on our sites.
We will not link to a site if it:
- Contains advertising.
- Engages in advocacy. (It must not advocate political
action such as boycotting businesses or sending automated e-mails
to Congress);
- Fails to identify the source of the site (what individual
or organization produces it or is responsible for it) clearly
on the site's home page. We're looking for organization names, phone
numbers, e-mail and web addresses, etc. that a person could contact
for additional information.
- Links to sites which are not factual
and neutral (This would exclude a site which is itself neutral but
links to a radical or opinion-based site).
- Is clearly out of date.
We link to materials that are current or popular. (For example, if
a site has lots of broken links and looks as if it isn't being maintained,
we won't link to it.)
Is it appropriate for the audience?
The item has to be age-appropriate and a useful educational tool
for the intended audience. We take into account reading level and
various indicators of a site's complexity.
Is it easy to use and engaging?
- It must be easy to use, well organized, and simple
to navigate. You shouldn't have to read a lot of
instructions in order to use it effectively. There should be adequate
explanations and instructions.
- The site should look
polished and attractive. It should appeal to the target audience.
- Young users should be able to find age-appropriate material easily,
without going off track into content for adults.
- Special considerations
for Teachers site: Curriculum materials must contain certain basic
information so they'll be useful for educators. They should have
background, vocabulary, and age or grade level.
Does it promote critical and creative thinking?
- It should present topics,
problems and references so that people who use them understand the
topics' importance, develop questions, and explore the answers. This
exploration can include developing and implementing activities and
experiments to answer questions, doing additional research using other
resources, conducting interviews, and posing further questions.
- Students
develop critical thinking skills as
they acquire the knowledge and skills to identify and understand
the components of a topic, put information together in a meaningful
way, determine the positive and negative aspects of solutions,
consider a variety of value systems and make choices with an understanding
of the range of consequences that will result.
- Students
develop creative thinking skills with
activities that enable them to ask questions, explore new solutions,
and revise their thinking to accommodate newly acquired knowledge.
Such activities also incorporate an acceptance of different
views or approaches to problems and reward effort as well as
success.
- We link to materials which encourage users
to arrive at their own conclusions instead of advocating
one way of thinking (e.g., no finger pointing at polluters).
Is it interactive? Is it well-suited to the Web?
- The site should feature interactive educational activities.
Just giving information is not the same as providing
education.
- Some things just aren't well-adapted for
use on the Web. That's okay to some extent if you can print
them out easily for use offline (e.g., activity books, puzzles,
posters).
- Graphics should reinforce the main concepts
of the resource and its educational goals.
- Graphics
need to be culturally sensitive and demonstrate diversity; they
should not reinforce negative stereotypes.
Can someone use it without being a computer whiz?
We look for resources that an average person could use on an average
computer setup. We recognize that this is very difficult to
quantify, and that technology changes all the time. We look for problems
like these:
- Requires you to buy new hardware or software
- Takes too
long to load
- Doesn't tell you clearly what plug-in is
needed, where to get it, or how to install it
Is the content clear and easy to understand?
- We look for clear writing, without jargon or acronyms.
It should explain technical terms.
There shouldn't be spelling or grammar errors. Content in foreign languages
should also be well-written, with accurate spelling, grammar
and punctuation.
- The content should reinforce the purpose
of the site; activities should be both fun and relevant.
- All
text and images should be clear and legible. If there's a printable
resource, it should print clearly.
A word on federal government Web policies
All EPA content we link to
must meet Agency policies. In particular, we look for:
- Children's
privacy protection - We will not knowingly collect identification
information from children aged 13 and under. We will identify the work
product of a child only with first name, age, and home state--nothing
more specific than that.
- Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act (aka “Accessibility”):
electronic information developed or used by the federal
government must be accessible to people with disabilities
REFERENCES
For more information on developing EE materials for the
Web, please:
- Order a copy of Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines
for Excellence from EPA's Office
of Environmental Education (OEE) at epa.gov/enviroed/eepubsEPA.htm;
- Read the addendum to the NAAEE Guidelines that addresses
the development
of technology education materials. It's based on a study
conducted by the Council for Educational Development and Research
and is published in a book entitled, " Plugging
In...Choosing
and Using Educational Technology ."
- Contact the Environmental
Education Coordinator in your Region. You'll find a list at
epa.gov/enviroed/contacts1.html
- Contact Drew Burnett (202-564-0448 or burnett.andrew@epa.gov)
for more information.
(October 2004)
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