AUGUSTA – The Forest Ecology Network kicked off an environmental education reform campaign Tuesday, aimed at teaching the importance of environmental policy to public school students, with an essay and photo scholarship contest open to Maine high school students.

Jonathan Carter, director of FEN, said environmental education needs to become a required part of the public school curriculum. “If we are to have an ecologically literate society with leaders ready to defend the forests, clean air and pure water, we must make sure that our students understand their responsibility for sustaining life forces, cycles, and process upon which all life depends,” Carter said in a written statement.

Michael Hamilton, a USM teacher of environmental policy, said that incoming college students should understand ecological processes and how they affect the environment.