NAAEE continued working with the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to ensure that every future teacher attending more than 660 NCATE-accredited colleges and universities is highly qualified to teach about the environment and environmental issues. Two-thirds of the nation’s new teacher graduates come from NCATE-accredited schools.

In Year 5, the first three universities to seek accreditation under NCATE’s new EE requirements filed EE standards reports. NAAEE also began to develop a “Certificate of Distinction” to guide and recognize EE programs at institutions not accredited by NCATE. NAAEE’s Pre-Service Advisory Council delivered training in the EE standards for teacher-education faculty attending NAAEE’s 2009 and 2010 conferences. In addition, NAAEE continued to develop the Higher Education Directory and improved its search features; 600 faculty members accessed 201,000 pages in the directory during Year 5.